Concept Life Sciences, scientific Laboratory and consultancy group has acquired CXR Biosciences.

This marks its fourth acquisition since it was formed in July 2014. Led by Executive Chairman Michael Fort and Chief Executive Officer Alan Morgan the Concept Life Sciences Group currently has over 600 staff in 11 core locations, with advanced plans for further expansion into continental Europe.

CXR Biosciences is a leading investigative toxicology business. Its in-house expertise assists international life sciences companies to resolve issues relating to the safety of compounds and with the selection of drug and chemical candidates. The company was eyed as an acquisition target as it complements Concept Life Sciences’ existing platform of problem solving chemical synthesis and biological services. The acquisition of CXR Biosciences further strengthens Concept Life Sciences’ portfolio offering and enhances its ability to support its customer’s complex discovery projects.

The CXR Biosciences team comprises staff from both industrial and academic backgrounds; over 50 per cent of whom have PhDs bringing Concept’s total number of PhDs to over 120. CXR Biosciences will retain its name and operate under the Concept Life Sciences Group umbrella. All staff including the management team will be joining the Concept Life Sciences’ Group. CXR Biosciences CEO, Paul Smith will continue to head up the business.

Commenting on the deal Concept Life Sciences CEO, Alan Morgan said: “I am delighted to welcome Paul Smith and his team to the Concept Group. This deal marks another successful strategic acquisition further expanding our footprint and strengthening our offering. Specifically the acquisition of CXR Biosciences will enable us to continue to extend our capability in terms of broader discovery and pre-clinical services and add further value to an already well-established group.”

Paul Smith the CEO of CXR Biosciences continued: “We are very pleased to join the Concept Group and see this as a natural next step in our company’s development. Concept is a dynamic group with ambitious international growth plans. CXR Biosciences enjoys a market leading position in investigative and exploratory toxicology, metabolism and pharmacokinetics. By being part of the Concept Group we will be able to continue to build on that success whilst benefitting from being part of the Concept discovery platform.”

Concept Life Sciences is supported by the leading European private equity group Equistone Partners Europe as part of their €1.5bn Fund IV. The Group acquired Peakdale Molecular, Resource & Environmental Consultants Limited and Scientific Analysis Laboratories Limited in a US$100m enterprise value deal in July 2014.

Executive Chairman Michael Fort said: “Over the past year our group’s organic growth has been impressive. We plan to continue to complement that growth with a series of carefully selected strategic acquisitions, thus adding significant value and expertise to the Group.  At the time of launch we laid out ambitious plans to build a comprehensive suite of niche, high-value, problem-solving services for our life science customer base. With the addition of market leading organisations such as CXR, we are more than achieving those plans. We have identified a number of other complementary acquisitions, both in the UK and Europe, which we hope to execute during the remainder of 2015.”

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