Now back in public life on AIM (see here), Instem Life Science Systems has made its maiden acquisition, that of Cambridge-based healthcare R&D business intelligence firm, BioWisdom. Instem will pay up to £1.5m in cash, debt and shares for BioWisdom, which turned over £1.55m last year at a 24% EBITA margin. Instem reports its maiden FY results later in the month, but were last seen heading towards revenues of £10m, though operating margin at half-time was only around 7%. Instem’s shares have done well since the 175p float, and now sit at 220p.
R&D business intelligence seems to be an interesting hot-spot, indeed one that privately held IDBS has been profiting from for quite a while (see Onwards and upwards for IDBS). And do watch out for our soon-to-be-published report on the UK Healthcare software and IT services landscape – though of course you will need to subscribe to our highly regarded PublicSectorViews research programme to get your hands on it!