IBA FINALIZES ACQUISITION OF CIS BIO INTERNATIONAL BY BUYING OUT THE IRE'S SHARES:
Embargo until 5:40 (Belgian time) – May 29, 2008
Louvain-la-Neuve and Fleurus, Belgium, May 29, 2008 – IBA (Ion Beam Applications S.A.: Reuters IBAB.BR and Bloomberg IBAB.BB) announced today that it has decided to exercise its option to purchase 80.1 percent of the indirect interest held by IRE (Institut National des Radioéléments, Fleurus, Belgium) in CIS bio International (CISBIO).
The purchase price will be around EUR 20 million, with 50 percent to be paid in cash and 50 percent in IBA stock in order to further strengthen the historic partnership between IBA and IRE, one of its founding shareholders. This transaction will strengthen IRE’s position as IBA’s second largest shareholder, with almost 6 percent stake in the Group. The cash payment will be used to seed projects useful to the joint development of IRE, CISBIO, and IBA. As part of this operation, IBA and IRE have also agreed to develop various partnerships thus optimizing areas of synergy by pooling know-how and scientific, technical and commercial supports.
CISBIO is a European and world leader in biomedical technology—specifically, in vitro medical diagnostics and the radioactive marking of molecules used in nuclear medicine therapy and imaging. It is also at the international forefront for the in vitro screening of new drugs for the pharma and biotech industries, thanks to its HTRF® technology. Its products are used in several fundamental fields of medicine (oncology, cardiology, rheumatology, pneumology, and endocrinology). Headquartered in Saclay, near Paris, France, the company has around 600 employees and posted consolidated revenues of nearly EUR 120 million in 2007.
“Bringing CISBIO into the IBA Group is a very important step for our company,” said Pierre Mottet, Chief Executive Officer of IBA. “We believe that synergies with IBA will enable continued growth in CISBIO’s various businesses and will allow our two entities to take a leadership position in the field of pharmaceuticals. This acquisition makes IBA one of the major players in the radiopharmaceutical industry in Europe. More specifically, it has the following objectives:
* Strengthening our R&D capacity to develop new molecular imaging molecules, by incorporating CISBIO’s scientific teams;
* Strengthening our positron emission tomography (PET) production and distribution network, by incorporating CISBIO’s six FDG (fluorodeoxyglucose) production and distribution facilities in France;
* Sustaining our sales growth in the eurozone, thereby reducing our dependency on the dollar;
* Achieving economies of scale.”
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