Sigma-Aldrich to acquire pharmaceutical testing firm BioReliance

Sigma-Aldrich has announced the agreement of a deal to acquire BioReliance Holdings, a provider of biopharmaceutical testing services.

A fee of $350 million (227.7 million pounds) has been agreed with BioReliance's current owner Avista Capital Partners, with the deal expected to close in the first quarter of 2012.

BioReliance has operations in the US, Scotland, Japan and Bangalore, with annual revenues coming to $110 million in 2010 and double-digit growth expected for 2011.

It offers a range of critical services to facilitate drug development, manufacturing and commercialisation activities, including biologic, specialised toxicology and animal health testing.

Rakesh Sachdev, president and chief executive officer of Sigma-Aldrich, said: "As the market continues its focus on biological drug development, our leadership in this area should enable us to build even better, more customer-specific solutions."

This comes in the same month the company announced an extension of its laboratory chemicals production contract with Honeywell.