Avista Capital acquires BioReliance from Invitrogen

Avista Capital Partners has announced it has completed its acquisition of BioReliance Corporation, a business unit of Invitrogen Corporation for approximately $210 million.

BioReliance is a leading contract service organization providing biological safety testing, toxicology, viral manufacturing, and laboratory animal diagnostic services to the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries globally.

Tim Derrington, who served as General Manager of BioReliance under Invitrogen, has been appointed CEO. Charles Harwood has been appointed Executive Chairman of the BioReliance Board of Directors. Mr. Harwood was previously President and CEO of Focus Diagnostics, where he worked closely with the Avista Capital Partners team.

Mr. Derrington stated, "Avista is the ideal partner to help us enhance our ability to develop and deliver outstanding biologics safety testing and other R&D testing services to our customers. We look forward to benefiting from the Avista team's extensive experience with and understanding of the healthcare industry, and strengthening our company's leading position in the niche markets in which we operate."

"We are eager to partner again with Charles Harwood and look forward to working with Tim Derrington and the entire BioReliance team," said David Burgstahler, a partner at Avista Capital Partners. "BioReliance has built an impressive record as a premier service provider and is a recognized leader in each of its service areas, and we are very excited about the company's future growth prospects."

"BioReliance has a solid reputation for pioneering scientific advancements in the contract services organization industry, strong regulatory expertise, and innovative testing solutions," added Larry Pickering, a Healthcare Industry Partner at Avista Capital Partners and BioReliance Board member. "Healthcare is one of our core capabilities at Avista, and we believe that by working closely with the talented leadership team at BioReliance, we will better position the company to take full advantage of favorable industry trends within the biopharmaceutical sector."

Founded in 1947 as Microbiological Associates, Rockville, Maryland based BioReliance is a specialist provider of contract biologics safety testing, GMP manufacturing, and pre-clinical testing services, and focuses on the rapidly growing biologics sector of the pharmaceutical industry. The company provides cost-effective services to over 600 clients annually, including most of the largest pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies in the world. BioReliance's services and broad experience provide all of its clients with a cost effective alternative to the fixed costs associated with internal development and manufacturing.

In 2006, Avista closed on healthcare investments in Nycomed (www.nycomed.com) and MedServe (www.medserveinc.com). While at DLJ Merchant Banking Partners, the Avista partners led numerous healthcare transactions including Accellant, Charles River Laboratories, Focus Diagnostics, KCI, Prometheus Labs, and Warner Chilcott.

Weil, Gotshal & Manges served as legal counsel for Avista Capital Partners, and financing was arranged by UBS Securities and The Royal Bank of Scotland.