London, UK – GHO Capital, the European specialist investor in healthcare, acknowledges today’s announcement from its portfolio company Caprion Biosciences, Inc. (“Caprion” or “the Company”) regarding the acquisition of the assets of the immune monitoring laboratory of ImmuneHealth, ASBL.
Located in Gosselies, Belgium, the ImmuneHealth laboratory will provide a fully operational immune monitoring laboratory infrastructure with well-established expertise, quality processes and industry services track record, which Caprion will leverage to expand its immune monitoring offering and strengthen its business partnerships and research collaborations throughout Europe. The ImmuneHealth lab also possesses complementary expertise and assays for cellular and humoral immunity that will help support Caprion’s efforts to further diversify its services offering in the areas of infectious diseases and vaccine development.
As a leading global provider of specialized immunology and proteomics analytical laboratory services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, Caprion is positioned for continued growth particularly in the rapidly expanding R&D services for immune oncology therapies, precision medicine biomarkers and biologics drugs. Caprion has achieved strong growth in recent years based on rapidly expanding client demand for the high quality differentiated services of its ImmuneCarta® platform for monitoring immune response of patients in clinical development of drugs that involve the immune system, as well as for its ProteoCarta™ proteomics platform for the identification and quantification of proteins for biomarker discovery and validation, and for quality control in the manufacturing processes of biological drugs.
This announcement marks Caprion’s first acquisition since it was recapitalized in July with GHO Capital. With favourable trends in immuno-oncology and proteomics, Caprion will continue to expand its capabilities on a global scale.
Martin LeBlanc, President and CEO of Caprion stated: “This European expansion is a core part of Caprion’s strategy to strengthen our competitive positioning and expand our service offering to better support our pharma and biotech clients as part of their global and European clinical trial initiatives. The opportunity to partner with the outstanding operation and team of the ImmuneHealth lab also provides us with an immediate access to an exciting new network of business partners as well as a vibrant research environment for building scientific collaborations in Belgium and Europe”.
Dominique Demonte, Chairman of ImmuneHealth said: “Caprion’s expertise and vision will support the deployment of the services developed at ImmuneHealth on a broader scale and will create a natural bridge between Canada and Wallonia to promote strong business partnerships. This acquisition is therefore very good news for ImmuneHealth clients and for the development of our region”.
With its two locations in North America and Europe, 120 employees including 70 PhD and/or MSc degrees, Caprion is now well-positioned to support the global clinical immune monitoring needs of its biopharma partners. Caprion will continue to operate from its headquarters in Montreal (Canada) as well as from its new location in Belgium under the leadership of Caprion’s current management team.
Financial details of the transaction were not disclosed.