L.A. Medical Firm Acquires ACL-Palmer

The Nichols Institute, a Los Angeles medical diagnostic testing company, has acquired ACL-Palmer, a San Diego medical testing joint venture created in July by American Clinical Laboratories and Palmer Laboratory Medical Group, company officials said Friday.

Nichols, which operates medical testing laboratories in San Juan Capistrano and San Pedro that perform routine blood tests and a series of more complex tests, said it would pay $4 million for ACL-Palmer, which has four office and laboratory locations in San Diego County. ACL-Palmer specializes in substance-abuse screening and other medical tests.

Nichols, a publicly traded company, reported that net income rose 46% to $813,000 and revenues increased 16% to $16.8 million for its fiscal 1985 nine-month period ended Aug. 31.

ACL-Palmer reported pretax income of $210,000 and revenues of $1.4 million during the four months after its founding in July.