BioVectra's private equity firm owner selling P.E.I. company to U.S. firm for $1.25B Cdn

CBC

July 23, 2024 at 2:18 p.m.·2 min read

BioVectra employs 450 people in Prince Edward Island and has 200 employees in Nova Scotia. It has been owned by H.I.G. Capital since 2019. (Laura Meader/CBC - image credit)

A Prince Edward Island company born in a garage 54 years ago is being sold to a California company for $1.25 billion Cdn.

Agilent Technologies has agreed to acquire the Charlottetown-based pharmaceutical developer and manufacturer BioVectra Inc., which employs 450 people in Prince Edward Island and 200 in Nova Scotia, from private equity firm H.I.G. Capital.

"The acquisition provides the ability to expand the range of capabilities available to global pharmaceutical partners working on next-generation treatments and therapeutics that will improve patients' lives," BioVectra said in a news release about the sale.

CEO Oliver Technow said the sale does not mean local jobs will be moving to the U.S., adding that Agilent has given him no reason to believe staff have anything to fear.

"We are an incredibly successful company," he said in an interview. "All I can see is more growth, more opportunity, more employment in the short and the mid and the long term."

BioVectra CEO Oliver Technow, shown in a 2021 file photo, calls the operation 'an incredibly successful company.' (Wayne Thibodeau/CBC)

The company got its start back in 1970 as Diagnostic Chemicals Ltd., founded by former UPEI dean of science Dr. Regis Duffy. At that time, he worked out of his garage and hired graduate students from his chemistry classes.

BioVectra's current specialties include biologics, small molecules, bioreagents, lipids, pDNA, mRNA and LNP manufacturing, the news release said.

"We produce the active ingredients in medications — that could be from tablets to injections to any type of medicine that has been used to improve patients' lives," Technow said.

"We work for big pharma, for small biotech, for Canadian companies as well, for international companies as well. But that's in a nutshell what we do. We help companies that improve patients' lives to bring these medicines to life."

The sale to Agilent is expected to be wrapped up by the end of the year, "subject to the satisfaction of customary regulatory and other closing conditions," the BioVectra news release said.

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