Selvita to acquire Fidelta from Galapagos
Galapagos NV and Selvita S.A. – announced that they have signed an agreement under which Selvita will acquire 100% of the outstanding shares in Fidelta d.o.o. for an enterprise value of € 31.2M plus the customary adjustments for net cash and working capital.
Fidelta is a contract research organization within the Galapagos Group of companies, with core scientific competences in inflammation, fibrosis, and anti-infectives. It currently employs 181 employees, including over 150 highly experienced scientists, providing integrated drug discovery services in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry, with a proven track record of accomplished laboratory projects over many years. Fidelta is located in state-of-the art R&D facilities in Zagreb, Croatia which offer almost 6,000 m2 of research space. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close on the 4th of January 2021.
Galapagos is a fully integrated biopharmaceutical company with a deep pipeline of novel mechanism of action candidates and commercial operations in Europe; as such, the CRO activities offered by Fidelta no longer fit with its strategy.
Upon completion of the acquisition, Fidelta will be fully consolidated under the Selvita Group, and will continue to operate under the Fidelta name.
More comprehensive offering and opening of new growth opportunities
The scope of services provided by Fidelta is complementary to Selvita’s offerings and will enable Selvita to build a competitive advantage in business areas such as DMPK, in vivo pharmacology, and toxicology. Selvita will also increase its scale of operations within medicinal chemistry and in vitro pharmacology, resulting in significant strengthening of its market position.
Fidelta's therapeutic areas of expertise align with current market trends, as infectious diseases, inflammation, and fibrosis are all areas of core expertise for Fidelta and are becoming increasingly major areas of interest for pharma companies due to the significant and unmet medical needs.
“We are thrilled to announce our acquisition of Fidelta. This is a perfect fit for us: an extensively experienced organization, with a full range of in-house drug discovery capabilities and an established track record of clinical candidate delivery,” says Boguslaw Sieczkowski, Chief Executive Officer at Selvita. “With this acquisition, we are not only executing our strategy announced this year, but we’re actually taking a leap in both the scope of our services portfolio and the scale of business. It is a transformative moment in the history of Selvita.”
“The scientific knowledge, the business acumen, and the focus and commitment of the team at Fidelta are second to none. I would like to thank the Fidelta team for the excellent collaboration over the years. I’m sure they will thrive under the Selvita umbrella. We will continue part of our discovery work with Fidelta, so we will benefit from that,” says Onno van de Stolpe, CEO of Galapagos.
“We are very happy to take this big and logical step in the further development of Fidelta, and together with Selvita, to strengthen our presence on the market. Bringing together these two companies will allow us to keep a high level of quality and offer an even more integrated approach in services that we provide to our clients,” says Adrijana Vinter, Managing Director of Fidelta.
Transaction structure and its value potential
Over the years, Fidelta has transformed from an internal R&D department into a profitable external CRO delivering strong growth. Fidelta reported revenues of € 17.4M and an EBITDA of € 2.6M in 2019. Full year 2020 is on track to become a record year for Fidelta; in the first 9 months Fidelta reported revenues of € 17.2M, and an operating profit of € 4.4M.
Fidelta possesses a diverse revenue base, including cooperation with a significant number of big pharma and biotech customers. The acquisition will add to Selvita’s revenues growth and make a significant contribution to its EBITDA.