CAP TODAY Pathology/Laboratory Medicine/Laboratory Management
April 24, 2018—BioMérieux has acquired Astute Medical, developer of the NephroCheck test, for approximately $90 million. NephroCheck is an FDA-cleared test for the early risk assessment of acute kidney injuries based on the level of two biomarkers, IGFBP-7 and TIMP-2.
The acquisition builds on a partnership developed between the two companies in 2015, when Astute granted BioMérieux a license to develop and market the NephroCheck test for the Vidas automated immunoassay system. BioMérieux has been a licensed distributor for the NephroCheck test on the Astute140 Meter in the U.S. since 2017.
“We are very enthusiastic to welcome the Astute team as part of BioMérieux after three years of beneficial collaboration,” Alexandre Mérieux, chairman and CEO of BioMérieux, said in a statement. “Because of its relevance in many severe medical conditions, the NephroCheck test developed by Astute perfectly fits BioMérieux’s strategy to differentiate Vidas through proprietary markers and to provide our customers with innovative and high medical value diagnostic solutions for improved patient care.”
BioMérieux intends to continue to invest in health economic and outcome studies for NephroCheck to explore the other promising biomarkers in the Astute pipeline as well as work with Astute’s current license and distribution partners to make the test more widely available.