Deals Shaping The Medical Industry, April 2012

Point-of-care diagnostics company Alere Inc. has acquired private drugs-of-abuse screening firm eScreen Inc. for $270mm in cash up front, plus another $70mm in earn-outs. (Feb.)

EScreen, which reported 2011 revenues of $120mm, was formed in 1998 to provide drugs-of-abuse screening and automated hiring services. In 2010, eScreen merged with Pembrooke Occupational Health, another employment screening company; the deal brought eScreen new onsite drug testing and medical services, and a file management system. It now uses the eReader, an automated FDA-cleared reader to collect, manage, and report millions of regulated- and non-regulated urine drug screens for the health care and corporate sectors. EScreen also offers employee-related health testing products and services, including the eScreen123 paperless chain-of-custody form, MyeScreen web-based reporting software, and Health-eScreen electronic application to schedule and process reports. Unlike competitors, eScreen is the only instrumented point-of-collection test that can produce negative results in about 15 minutes