The acquisition follows a $25 million minority equity investment by NeoGenomics in Inivata in May 2020, at which time NeoGenomics was granted a fixed price option to purchase the remainder of Inivata for $390 million.
Inivata, with its leading liquid biopsy technology platform, will remain a separate business division alongside NeoGenomics’ growing clinical, pharma and informatics divisions. Current Inivata CEO Clive Morris will become the President of Inivata and will report to Mark Mallon, CEO of NeoGenomics.
Inivata will be focused on the continued development of leading liquid biopsy tests including RaDaR™, the highly sensitive personalized assay for the detection of residual disease and recurrence (MRD). Proof-of-principle data presented at this year’s AACR Annual Meeting showed RaDaR demonstrated excellent specificity (100%) and sensitivity (100%) in detecting MRD in patient cohorts with head and neck cancer and early-stage breast cancer. These results provided growing evidence in support of RaDaR’s capabilities in different cancer types, building on data previously reported in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), where RaDaR detected ctDNA 6-12 months ahead of clinical progression in the majority of cases and predicted lower progression free survival.
Clive Morris, CEO of Inivata, commented: “Joining the NeoGenomics Group provides Inivata with an excellent foundation to support our growth ambitions. Our two organizations have highly complementary capabilities and we are excited to combine with NeoGenomics following a successful year of working together. By leveraging our combined resources, we expect to accelerate the development of our promising RaDaR minimal residual disease assay and bolster commercialization efforts with biopharma before driving a successful launch into the clinical setting.”
Mark Mallon, CEO of NeoGenomics, commented: “NeoGenomics has spent the better part of the last year working in partnership with the exceptional team of professionals at Inivata while conducting confirmatory due diligence on Inivata and its world-leading liquid biopsy platform technology. We are exercising our option to purchase Inivata eight months ahead of plan and are delighted to welcome Inivata’s world class team of liquid biopsy experts and talented employees to NeoGenomics.”
Douglas M VanOort, Executive Chairman of NeoGenomics commented: “Testing for minimal residual disease has the potential to revolutionize oncology care to benefit millions of patients as they manage through their cancer journey and we are excited to innovate our offerings with Inivata’s best-in-class platform. Combining Inivata’s compelling technology with our unrivaled reach into the clinical community channel and existing relationships with biopharma is a winning strategy.”
Perella Weinberg Partners LP acted as financial advisor to Inivata. Inivata was represented by K&L Gates LLP through a cross-border, multi-disciplinary transactional legal team spread across offices in Raleigh, Chicago, New York, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and London.