Akoya Biosciences completes $20M acquisition by Billerica biotech firm
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Akoya Biosciences' Marlborough headquarters
After months of negotiations, including those with an anonymous, unsolicited third party, Marlborough-based biotech firm Akoya Biosciences has officially been acquired by Quanterix, a fellow publicly traded biotech company out of Billerica.
Effective Tuesday, the $20-million cash acquisition saw Akoya transition to become a wholly owned subsidiary of Quanterix, with Akoya requesting to be delisted from the Nasdaq stock market, according to a Tuesday filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
The biotech firms originally announced their intent to merge in January in a transaction they expected to be completed during the second quarter, creating a $220-million entity. But proceedings became more complicated after Akoya received an anonymous, unsolicited buyout offer in May for at least $69.83 million.
Akoya’s board announced at the time it would consider the bid, but continued to recommend the merger with Quanterix to stakeholders.
Shortly thereafter, the anonymous bidder withdrew its buyout offer after the party declined to provide Akoya with the improved terms the Marlborough firm had requested during acquisition discussions.
“We remain excited to combine with Quanterix and believe this partnership offers compelling value for Akoya shareholders. We look forward to closing the transaction and leveraging our collective scale to drive synergies across our organizations and customers, expediting our path to profitability,” Akoya CEO Brian McKelligon said in a Tuesday press release from Quanterix.
In consequence of the merger, all Akoya executives and members of its board of directors have relinquished their roles. Masoud Toloue, Quandrix CEO, is stepping in as the subsidiary’s president, according to the SEC filing.
“The acquisition of Akoya positions us to deliver comprehensive protein biomarker solutions that leverage signatures in blood and tissue, together providing a more holistic and predictive view of a patient’s disease,” Toloue said in the release. “This transaction extends our portfolio into new markets and is expected to expand our served addressable market from $1 billion to $5 billion. We believe the combined business will benefit from significant scale, a strong balance sheet and an accelerated path to profitability by 2026.”
Akoya has employed New York City-based Perella Weinberg Partners to serve as its financial advisor for the transaction and Boston-based DLA Piper as legal counsel, according to the press release. Quanterix has hired New York City-based Goldman Sachs as its financial advisor, Covington & Burling and Sidley Austin as legal counsel, headquartered in Washington, D.C. and Chicago, respectively.
Mica Kanner-Mascolo is a staff writer at Worcester Business Journal, who primarily covers the healthcare and diversity, equity, and inclusion industries.
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