MV still open to acquisition despite calling off Acron merger talks
This article was originally published in Clinica
Executive Summary
Molecular Vision (MV) announced last week that it had ceased discussions with its Swiss development partner Acrongenomics over a potential merger. The two companies had agreed in November 2007 to MV becoming a wholly-owned subsidiary of Acron and that the transaction was to be completed at the end of January. However, the deadline has since been extended twice, and while Acron acquired a 10.9% stake in MV in February 2008, a full acquisition was not completed as expected at the end of March. Dr Campbell told Clinica that by dropping the deal, both companies are able to concentrate on their respective activities "without being clouded by the takeover discussion". However, he did not reject the possibility of picking up merger discussions with Acron, or with other potential suitors, in the future. The breakdown of the merger talks will not affect the existing R&D agreement between the two companies to develop low-cost, readily portable POC diagnostics using MV's proprietary light emitting based (LEP)-based detector technology.