Donaldson Acquires Belgian Univercells Technologies for €138m

Headquartered in Nivelles, Belgium, Univercells Technologies employs over 100 people worldwide. The company has been acquired for a cash consideration of €136 million on a cash-free, debt-free basis, which represents a 13x multiple of the company's annual sales. Univercells Technologies will be acquired from Gamma Biosciences and Univercells SA and will become part of Donaldson's Life Sciences segment. Baker McKenzie acted as legal advisor to Donaldson.

Univercells Technologies' product offering includes the unique scale-X™ single-use structured fixed-bed bioreactor for the enhanced production of viruses used in cell and gene therapy, viral vaccines and other therapeutics. In addition, the company's automated NevoLine™ Upstream platform incorporates industry-standard filtration to provide integrated upstream and midstream processing capabilities in a single unit, resulting in improved productivity, reduced footprint and greater consistency of results.

"The acquisition of Univercells Technologies represents an important next step in Donaldson's life sciences strategy as we continue to expand our product portfolio to provide customers with a comprehensive, differentiated offering," said Tod Carpenter, Donaldson's Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer. "Univercells Technologies' engineered systems provide a close fit with our previous life sciences acquisitions as well as our growing organic product line."

"We are very excited to join Donaldson as we expand our portfolio of best-in-class biomanufacturing platforms and increase our market penetration and related installed base of equipment," said Mathias Garny, Chief Executive Officer of Univercells Technologies. "Our technology, complemented by Donaldson's filtration excellence and existing life science capabilities, is part of a larger vision to bring end-to-end solutions for advanced therapies to the market."

In just a few months, Donaldson has added a number of companies to its portfolio (Purilogics, Solaris, Isolere Bio...) with a clear focus on filtration, chromatography or other manufacturing platform technologies.

©EBM