Holliston, MA 1/22/18; Swedesboro, NJ 1/22/18—Harvard Bioscience, a life science manufacturer and marketer, has sold its Denville Scientific business to Thomas Scientific for $20 million, including a $3 million earn-out. A distributor of consumables for life science research, Denville Scientific generated 2017 revenues of $24.5 million. Harvard Bioscience also announced the acquisition of Data Sciences International (DSI), which provides products for physiologic monitoring with a preclinical focus, for $70 million. “With the sale of Denville, and upon the closing of the DSI acquisition, we will have transformed our company into a pure play life science instrumentation company with competitive advantages across our portfolio,” commented Harvard Bioscience President and CEO Jeffrey A. Duchemin. “This strategic shift will make Harvard Bioscience a larger company, less susceptible to fluctuations in academic research funding, with improved profitability on day one.” Thomas Scientific stated on its website, “Thomas, Phenix and now Denville remain committed to building the largest high-quality brand-centric distribution company serving science.”

With this divestment, Harvard Bioscience exits the distributor business. Denville Scientific offers a variety of life science products and consumables for instruments ranging from pipettors to reagents to microscopy and histology products. DSI sells telemetry and pulmonary solutions.

This is Thomas Scientific’s second acquisition in two months (see IBO 12/31/17). The purchase price is $17 million in cash with a two-year earn-out provision, according to a Harvard Bioscience conference call. Also, according to the call, Denville Scientific’s gross margins have been 32%–36%.