LinkMed acquire major sales channel
LinkMed acquires NorDiag´s 50 percent stake in Olerup International AB, which is the holding company for Olerup GmbH. LinkMed will thereby control 75 percent of the company. Both sales and earnings are consolidated into the Group as of June 1, 2011. Net sales are expected to increase on an annual basis by approximately SEK 28 million and the profit on EBIT level of SEK 8-10 million.
LinkMed increases its ownership in Olerup International AB to 75 percent by acquiring NorDiag 50 percent stake in Olerup International AB which is the holding company of Olerup GmbH. The remaining 25 percent of Olerup International is owned by Olle Olerup. The acquisition leads to a termination of the Joint Venture with NorDiag. NorDiag’s product Arrow will not continue to be sold by Olerup GmbH.
LinkMed will pay in cash total SEK 8 million for NorDiag’s part of Olerup International AB. The cash payment for the shares is divided into two tranches, whereby SEK 5 million will be paid upon the transfer of the shares and SEK 3 million will be paid no later than 31 October 2011.
Olerup GmbH is responsible for sales of Olerup SSP® and XM-ONE® in all markets outside North- and South America with direct sale in Scandinavia, Germany, Austria and Slovenia, while the rest of the market is covered by some 30 sub-distributors. Olerup GmbH accounts for about 80 percent of Olerup SSP® total sales and the LinkMed subsidiary Olerup Inc. in the U.S. accounts for the remaining 20 percent.
"The acquisition has a lot of positive implications for us in the short and long term in our strategy to become a global transplantation company. Sales and profit increases but equally important is that we now can focus on growth in a better way and work more direct with the customers. The acquisition is also very well-timed as we are now launching the SBT products from Conexio. The SBT products are expected within a few years to sell as much as the SSP products and we now have the full margin in the chain that will give us a very good profit development, "said LinkMed's CEO Ingemar Lagerlöf.
Olerup SSP
Olerup SSP® are products for PCR-based typing of HLA. The products are used to match patients and donors in hematopoietic stem cell and organ transplantations. Olerup SSP currently offers around 115-120 different typing kits, covering the approximately 6,000 different HLA variants that have been identified to date. Approximately five new HLA alleles are identified per day. It takes one to a few months to update all the kits for the new alleles. Olerup SSP offers both products for high-resolution and low resolution HLA typing with very low frequency of false positive and false negative reactions.
XM-ONE
XM-ONE® is the first standardized test for detecting antibodies against the endothelium. These endothelial cells are the first point of contact between the graft and the recipient's immune system. Antibodies to endothelium have been shown to play an important role in rejection reactions after transplantation. In a recent study presented in the recognized journal Transplantation, a research group at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, USA have shown that patients with antibodies to endothelial cells showed that the cross test XM-ONE® has significantly higher risk of being involved in rejection compared with patients who are negative in this test.
SBT products
SBT Resolver™, HLA typing by SBT technology and software for sequence analysis from Conexio. Conexios SBT Resolver ™ is a locus-specific PCR-based line of products for sequence based typing (SBT) of HLA. The products are used to match patients and donors in hematopoietic stem cell and organ transplantation. LinkMed exclusive marketing and distribution agreement covers SBT kit and a version of software for sequence analysis in all markets except Australia and New Zealand.
LinkMed AB discloses the information provided herein pursuant to the Securities Markets Act and/or the Financial Instruments Trading Act. The information was submitted for publication at 08:00 (CET) on May 24, 2011.
For more information please contact:
Ingemar Lagerlöf, CEO LinkMed tel: +46 708-73 27 33, email: ingemar.lagerlof@linkmed.se
Or visit www.linkmed.se
LinkMed's focus is mainly on the transplantation business with subsidiary product companies AbSorber and Olerup SSP, and the sales and distribution companies Olerup Inc. and Olerup GmbH. LinkMed has also a portfolio of associated life science companies, with four companies active in drug development and biotechnology and six companies operating in diagnostics and medical device. LinkMed is listed on NASDAQ OMX Stockholm Small Cap (ticker: LMED).
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