A Ko­re­an di­ag­nos­tics play­er that made mil­lions of Covid-19 tests in the ear­ly stages of the pan­dem­ic is now ex­pand­ing in­to the US mar­ket.

Cincin­nati-based Merid­i­an Bio­science put up no­tice Thurs­day morn­ing that it’s go­ing to be ac­quired by SD Biosen­sor, ac­com­pa­nied by in­vest­ment firm SJL Part­ners for $1.53 bil­lion in cash.

How the trans­ac­tion will work, ac­cord­ing to Merid­i­an, is that a “new­ly formed af­fil­i­ate ve­hi­cle” formed by SD Bio and SJL will ac­quire the com­pa­ny. In ex­change, Merid­i­an share­hold­ers will re­ceive $34 per share, a 32.4% pre­mi­um over the com­pa­ny’s share price $VI­VO when an of­fer was first made af­ter mar­ket close on March 17. The biotech’s price at that time was $25.67 per share.

Young Shik Cho

The deal is ex­pect­ed to close some­time in Q4 2022.

SD Biosen­sor chair­man Young Shik Cho said in a state­ment that “We are pleased to be a fam­i­ly with Merid­i­an Bio­science as a great part­ner for ac­cel­er­at­ing our en­try in­to the U.S. IVD (in vit­ro di­ag­nos­tics) mar­ket.”

SD Biosen­sor was the same com­pa­ny that Gingko Bioworks ac­quired its 50 mil­lion rapid anti­gen tests from in 2020.

Merid­i­an, formed in 1976, sells di­ag­nos­tic tests for dif­fer­ent dis­eases, in­clud­ing Covid-19 — along with test­ing reagents.

As part of the merg­er agree­ment, the new­ly formed “ve­hi­cle” will get all of Merid­i­an’s out­stand­ing shares. And the trans­ac­tion is not com­plete­ly set in stone yet — while Merid­i­an’s board has al­ready agreed to the deal, the trans­ac­tion is sub­ject to a few more things. Those in­clude ap­proval by Merid­i­an share­hold­ers, re­ceipt of re­quired reg­u­la­to­ry ap­provals, and the ab­sence of spec­i­fied “ma­te­ri­al­ly ad­verse out­comes” of Merid­i­an’s pre­vi­ous­ly dis­closed and on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the DOJ, among oth­ers.

That DOJ in­ves­ti­ga­tion is around Merid­i­an’s sub­sidiary, ac­cord­ing to the com­pa­ny’s most re­cent 10-K with the SEC in No­vem­ber 2021. Back in 2018, Merid­i­an’s sub­sidiary Mag­el­lan re­ceived a sub­poe­na from the DOJ re­gard­ing its Lead­Care prod­uct line — a blood test to de­tect lead poi­son­ing. Last year, the de­part­ment is­sued four more sub­poe­nas — two for an ex-em­ploy­ee and a cur­rent em­ploy­ee to tes­ti­fy be­fore a grand ju­ry in H1, and two more for both wit­ness­es and doc­u­ments in H2. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is still on­go­ing.

Once the trans­ac­tion clears, Merid­i­an not­ed that SDB will own ap­prox­i­mate­ly 60% and SJL will own ap­prox­i­mate­ly 40% of the com­pa­ny, which will no longer be trad­ed or list­ed on a pub­lic ex­change.

The re­lease added that SDB and SJL plan “to op­er­ate Merid­i­an as an in­de­pen­dent en­ti­ty fol­low­ing the com­ple­tion of the trans­ac­tion and the Com­pa­ny’s lead­er­ship team and head­quar­ters are ex­pect­ed to re­main in place.”

An­a­lysts with William Blair not­ed that the of­fer was 4.5 times the last 12 months of Merid­i­an’s sales. Not­ed in the re­port,

In terms of per­for­mance, Merid­i­an has been a stand­out in a dis­as­trous year for the sec­tor (and broad­er mar­ket) with the stock up 65% year-to-date and up 52% over the last 12 months.De­spite this, in­vestor in­ter­est had been rather lim­it­ed un­til the last cou­ple of weeks when we start­ed to re­ceive a flur­ry on in­ter­est on the name with a fo­cus on why the stock had been so strong.

Merid­i­an de­clined to com­ment for this sto­ry. How­ev­er, Merid­i­an CEO Jack Ken­ny said in a re­lease that “We are ex­cit­ed to an­nounce this new chap­ter for Merid­i­an af­ter the many years spent trans­form­ing the Com­pa­ny for sus­tain­able growth.”

Dupixent, the blockbuster anti-inflammatory drug from Sanofi and Regeneron, has cleared a high-stakes Phase III study in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, the companies announced Thursday morning.

If they hold up in a second, identical trial, the data pave the way for Dupixent to become the first biologic to treat patients whose COPD remains uncontrolled despite being on maximal standard-of-care inhaled therapy — the patient population studied in the pivotal program. The companies had spotlighted this as a key readout as they look to expand the Dupixent franchise and explore its full potential.

Incyte touted an accelerated approval for its PD-1 retifanlimab in a rare skin cancer on Wednesday, roughly a year and a half after the drug suffered a rejection in squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal (SCAC).

Retifanlimab, marketed as Zynyz, was approved for metastatic or recurrent locally advanced Merkel cell carcinoma (MCC), a fast-growing skin cancer typically characterized by a single, painless nodule. It’s roughly 40 times rarer than melanoma, according to the nonprofit Skin Cancer Foundation — but incidence is growing, particularly among older adults, Incyte said in its announcement.

Novartis is calling off a UK-based trial for Leqvio in the primary prevention of cardiovascular events in patients with high cholesterol, the company confirmed on Wednesday.

The Swiss pharma giant made the decision after “careful evaluation,” a spokesperson told Endpoints News via email. The trial, dubbed ORION-17, was planned in partnership with England’s National Health Service (NHS) and was part of the company’s strategy to establish Leqvio as a standard of care in cardiovascular disease management.