Inverness Medical Innovations and Procter & Gamble in consumer diagnostics venture

4 January 2007

Waltham, Mass. and Cincinnati. Inverness Medical Innovations, Inc. (AMEX:IMA) and The Procter & Gamble Company (NYSE:PG) have agreed to form a 50/50 joint venture for the development, manufacturing, marketing and sale of consumer diagnostic products outside of the fields of cardiology and diabetes.

With this agreement, Inverness will contribute its related consumer diagnostic assets, other than manufacturing and core intellectual property assets, to a new joint venture entity, and P&G will acquire its interest in the joint venture in consideration for a cash payment of US$325 Million.

Inverness' primary role in the collaboration will be to develop and manufacture consumer diagnostic products while P&G's primary role will be to market, sell, and distribute existing and to-be-developed products. Inverness will retain all rights with respect to the development and sale of cardiology diagnostic products and its professional point-of-care diagnostic businesses.

"We are excited about the formation of this joint venture with Inverness, which extends P&G's Health Care presence into consumer diagnostics. We believe that Inverness' experience and expertise in this field can be combined with P&G's consumer marketing and customer development capabilities to create tremendous new opportunities in the growing self-care market," said Richard June, Vice President, Global Personal Health Care.

"Inverness is proud to be contributing its consumer diagnostics business to the joint venture with P&G. We believe that this is a best-of-breed combination that has the potential for terrific growth," said Ron Zwanziger, CEO of Inverness.

The deal is expected to close in the latter half of the first quarter, 2007 and will be subject to the normal closing conditions and regulatory approvals, including filings to be made under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act. Inverness was represented by the law firm of Goodwin, Procter LLP and in-house counsel, and advised by Covington Associates. Procter & Gamble was advised by a team consisting of Covington & Burling LLP and in-house counsel.

To top