| | | Nice surprise to come home tonight to- Bulls Eye # 3 this year LPDX-LipoScience :+ )
LabCorp Acquiring Cholesterol Tester LipoScience By AMY REEVES, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY
Posted 11:49 AM ET
Medical-testing giant Laboratory Corp. of America (NYSE: LH) agreed to buy startup LipoScience (NASDAQ: LPDX) for $85.3 million in cash Thursday, sending the latter's shares up more than 62% in the stock market today.
LipoScience makes a lipid profile test using nuclear magnetic resonance technology to measure a patient's cholesterol levels and help manage heart disease. The stock went public at 9 in January 2013, but was hammered for over a year, bottoming out below 3 earlier this month. In an email to clients Thursday, ISI Group analyst Michael Cherny wrote that the company's problems are probably behind it.
"We believe that LPDX's test is superior when used for managing patients, and the issues that the company has faced in the past have largely been due to market access (and) negotiating reimbursement rates with third-party vendors," he wrote. "Given our positive view on the test, we believe that LH's commercial infrastructure should drive broader test adoption by removing some of the barriers to market access. Additionally, some payers have been pushing back against tests offered by out-of-network labs, which had impacted LPDX. Given that LH is an in-network provider for most large plans, we expect the above-mentioned payer-related pressures to abate."
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By midmorning Thursday, LipoScience's stock was trading a bit below LabCorp's offer price of $5.25 a share. LabCorp's stock was down about 1%, near 103.
Follow Amy Reeves on Twitter: @IBD_AReeves.
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