Purchase Gives BioSource Better Footing in Europe
Jim Chamberlain, president and chief executive of BioSource International of Camarillo, said his company’s recent acquisition of Medgenix Diagnostics S.A. of Belgium not only gives BioSource a greater presence in the European market but will enable it to enter new and advanced areas of research and development.
BioSource earlier this month completed the $6.56-million transaction with Nordion International of Ontario, Canada. As part of the deal, BioSource also acquired four Medgenix subsidiaries, located in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and France, and the sales forces behind them.
“This allows us to sell the product directly in Europe without using distributors,” Chamberlain said. “When we use distributors overseas, it’s a fast way of entering the market, but you don’t realize the gross market. Distributors take a huge chunk.”
The combined BioSource and Medgenix operation, now known as BioSource Europe S.A., has a combined 155 employees, 80 of those in Europe.
BioSource is a supplier of immunological reagents and test kits used in biomedical research to measure the amounts of certain proteins in the body’s blood or other fluid. The Medgenix operation produces similar test kits, some of which are used in human research in the European market.
In addition to its kits, BioSource manufactures custom DNA segments, portions of genes created synthetically that are incorporated into the kits for the manufacturing of proteins. The company entered the DNA arena with the November purchase of Menlo Park’s Keystone Laboratories, which is now a division of BioSource.
Chamberlain said he plans to have a second DNA manufacturing facility up and running in Belgium by the end of July, to serve the European market.
“We will be able to use the [Medgenix] research group and our research group to work together, and we will also be able to have one connected marketing effort,” Chamberlain said. “It will give us a stronger presence in Europe, a greater market share and a joint [research and development] that is much more sophisticated and quicker.”
BioSource customers include pharmaceutical companies such as Bristol-Meyers Squibb, academic institutions such as Johns Hopkins University, biotech companies including Amgen of Thousand Oaks and governmental organizations including the Food and Drug Administration, the National Cancer Institute and the Centers for Disease Control.
The Medgenix acquisition, in addition to enhancing BioSource’s existing operation, also will allow the company to enter new areas of the biotech market, Chamberlain said.
When it purchased Medgenix, BioSource also acquired the company’s patented DynaMix product line, a series of test kits that not only measure the amounts of protein in the body but can also stimulate a cell to determine its ability to naturally produce those proteins.
And down the road, Chamberlain said, BioSource probably will take its first step into the clinical world.
“We’re stepping up research and development to develop a breast cancer test that would allow physicians to determine if there is minimal residual disease after treatment,” he said.
Cancer cells may migrate to the bone marrow after chemotherapy treatments, Chamberlain said. If successful, he said, the test could measure how many of those cells are present.
“It would be our first diagnostic-type kit, but it’s still a couple of years down the line,” he said. “We will probably sell it as a research kit as we are doing the clinical trials.”
BioSource reported a net income of $519,748 on revenue of $2.5 million for the first quarter of 1996 ended March 31. That compared with income of $115,194 on revenue of $1.9 million for the same period in 1995.
