Thermo Fisher talks Life integration and long-term synergies

12-Mar-2014 - Last updated on 11-Dec-2023 at 12:17 GMT

An analyst predicts overlap between Thermo Fisher and Life Technologies will present manufacturing, procurement and logistics cost-saving opportunities.

At the Barclays Global Healthcare Conference yesterday, Thermo Fisher CEO Marc Casper spoke publicly for the first time about the integration of Life Technologies following the completion last month of the $15.8bn (€11.4bn) acquisition.

Though Casper remained relatively tight-lipped, he told investors Thermo Fisher’s goals for 2014 included “successfully integrating Life Technologies to deliver year one synergies and adjusted EPS accretion targets.”

However, “over time,” he continued, “we’ll have significant revenue synergies for our Life Technologies brand just leveraging the Thermo Fisher strength that we have with our customer base.”

To cut through the business jargon, Biopharma-Reporter.com spoke to ISI Group analyst Ross Muken who believes this will be “a fairly straight forward integration similar to what we have seen in other life science mergers.”

“The only wrinkle is that it is on a larger scale,” Muken added. “Obviously as part of nearly every combination you will have duplicative jobs and facilities. In addition you will likely see manufacturing, procurement and logistics savings as well.”

Thermo Fisher is no stranger to acquisitions in the last few years adding chromatography firm Dionex, lab instrument firm Phadia and diagnostics firm One Lambda to its business. Though not nearly as large as the Life deal, Casper told investors they enhanced Thermo Fisher’s strategic position and “led to recognised synergies” through leveraging our infrastructure and processes.

Thermo Fisher

As for capabilities, Life Tech will be integrated into Thermo Fisher’s Life Science Solutions business.

According to Casper, the sector brought in 26% of the overall $16.8bn revenue for 2013 (which included Life Tech’s sales) and covers bioscience, genetic sequencing and bioproduction.

Casper estimated the latter as a $500m a year business and said the firm is looking to combine “Thermo Fisher’s single-use tech with Life’s technologies and media purification productions to have a leadership position in that rapidly growing field.”