Milbank LLP acted as English restructuring and global antitrust counsel to Roche on the completion of its acquisition of LumiraDx group’s Point of Care technology, an innovative diagnostics platformRoche signed a sale and purchase agreement with LumiraDx’s English parent company on December 29, 2023, to acquire the LumiraDx group’s Point of Care platform business as part of a pre-packaged English administration sale. Certain mandatory closing conditions including antitrust and regulatory approvals were required before closing could occur.
Milbank’s antitrust team successfully secured Phase 1 unconditional CMA clearance for the transaction, as well as unconditional clearances for all other required regulatory conditions within the targeted timeframe. The LumiraDx group’s Point of Care platform business was, in the interim period, operated by the LumiraDx’s English parent company’s administrators.
Roche is one of the world’s largest biotechnology companies and a leader in in-vitro diagnostics, having been founded in 1896 in Basel, Switzerland, as one of the first industrial manufacturers of branded medicines. LumiraDx group is a next-generation Point of Care diagnostics company that has sought to transform community-based healthcare since its founding in 2014 by consolidating multiple Point of Care tests on a single instrument.
The Milbank team advising Roche included partners Sarah Levin, Alexander Rinne, Andrea Hamilton and Sinjini Saha, special counsels Nicholas Crossin and Moritz Lichtenegger, and associates Rajpreet Lachhar and Jan Maas.
The transaction represents an innovative use of English pre-packaged administration sales to carry out the carve-out of an entire business unit from a complex corporate group and required worldwide coordination across practice areas. Milbank advised Roche alongside Davis Polk & Wardwell, who were lead English and New York corporate counsel on the transaction.
