Inverness dumps vitamins business

January 19, 2010 by MassDevice staff

Inverness Medical Innovations Inc. (NYSE:IMA) sold its vitamin and nutritional supplements subsidiary to International Vitamin Corp. for $63.4 million in cash.

The Waltham, Mass.-based diagnostics and lab equipment maker said it sold its Freehold and Irvington, N.J.-based Inverness Medical Nutritionals and IVC Industries businesses to IVC. The vitamins operation brought in $63.6 million in sales during the first nine months of 2009, but posted an operating loss of $2.4 million during that time.

The sale is a change of pace for Inverness, which has been on a bit of a buying spree lately. Earlier this month it offered to buy a three-quarters stake in Korean rapid diagnostics maker Standard Diagnostics (KDQ:066930) for up to $216.6 million and inked a group of distribution-to-acquisition deals with Epocal Inc. that could lead to it paying $255 million for the of Ottawa, Canada-based blood testing equipment maker.

Inverness also bought British CRO Mologic in October, registering nearly 129,000 shares worth about $5 million held by a group of Mologic founders and managers.

IMA put some black in back on the ledger during the third quarter. The company logged a 22.1 percent increase in revenues compared with Q3 2008, largely on a jump in sales of its influenza diagnostic tests and contributions from acquisitions.

Inverness posted net income of $14.3 million on net sales of $535.8 million for the three months ended Sept. 30, compared with a net loss of $9.1 million on sales of $438.8 million during the same period last year. The company credited strong sales of products related to Swine Flu for the improvement.

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