Thermo Fisher Scientific will buy Brammer Bio for $1.7 billion, making it the latest company jumping into the fast-growing, potentially lucrative field of gene therapy.
Brammer Bio, owned by private equity firm Ampersand Capital Partners, provides pharmaceutical companies developing gene and cell therapies with outsourced research and drug development services. The business has nearly 600 employees in the U.S.
Gene therapy, an experimental technique making headway across the globe, uses patients' own genes to treat or prevent disease.
The transaction is expected to close in the second quarter of 2019. Brammer Bio will become part of Thermo Fisher's pharma services business.
"By leveraging our combined capabilities, along with our commercial scale and customer relationships, we will strengthen our position as a trusted partner to pharma and biotech. We look forward to welcoming the Brammer Bio team to our company and working together to make more lifesaving treatments available to patients," said Michel Lagarde, president of Thermo Fisher's pharma services business.