RALEIGH PRA Health Sciences on Wednesday morning announced finances that exceeded Wall Street expectations – and then announced that it had been acquired in a $ 12 billion deal by ICON in Ireland. As a result, Raleigh will lose a headquarters of the company.
The combined ICON-PRA company will be based in Dublin.
And ICON pays a big price – the deal is valued at 30% of PRA’s share price before the announcement.
Shares of PRA (Nasdaq: PRAH) rose more than 20% to $ 154. The firm has approximately 17,000 employees worldwide.
Colin Shannon, the chairman and CEO of PRA, will join the board of directors of the combined company after the conclusion of the agreement.
ICON and PRA were competitors in the global life science enterprise, known as contract research organizations, or CROs.
The Triangle is a hub for the CRO industry, the home or site for major operations for companies such as Syneos Health, IQVIA, LabCorp, Parexel and PPD.
Steve Cutler, CEO of ICON, will manage the combined company.
In the announcement, Shannon explains the reasoning for the agreement:
‘I joined PRA 13 years ago to build a company that would make a difference in the world and change the way we develop new medicines. The way we do it now takes far too long and costs way too much. Critically ill patients cannot wait for healing. Service populations cannot wait for access. Every day counts. COVID-19 has created a platform for change that we can not ignore. The pandemic has accelerated the use of mobile healthcare technologies and healthcare intelligence tools – tools that helped develop PRA – at an unprecedented rate. The association of PRA and ICON will create an organization that has the people, data and technology to bring these drugs to patients faster and more efficiently than ever before. We are delighted to join ICON, a company with a similar culture and values. I owe a lot of thanks to PRA’s 19,000 talented employees who helped us bring this vision closer to reality. We stand together now because patients can not wait. ”
PRA shareholders will receive $ 80 cash and 0.4125 shares of ICON.
ICON trades on the Nasdaq under the symbol ICLR. ICON shares fell about 7% to $ 195 on the news.
“The combined company will create a new paradigm to accelerate clinical research and bring new medicines and devices to market,” said ICON CEO Cutler.
“Both ICON and PRA have good records of strong growth and performance and we are ready to build on this unmatched position of strength by utilizing the outstanding talent in both organizations. With a broader and deeper operational scale combined with innovative technology and real-world data solutions, we will enable all customers to reduce their development time and costs. We will be the leading provider of decentralized and hybrid trial solutions by integrating our data capabilities, healthcare platforms and Accellacare site network. The transaction will be very attractive from the full year 1 after closing. ”