Devyser acquires Italian SmartSeq and strengthens position in genetic data analysis

Stockholm, February 7, 2022 - Devyser Diagnostics AB (publ), a Swedish molecular diagnostics company, today announced that the company has utilized an option to acquire all of the remaining shares in the associated company SmartSeq S.r.l. ("SmartSeq"). The acquisition corresponds to 70% of shares in SmartSeq and the purchase consideration amounts to EUR 835,000, of which 29% in cash and 71% in newly issued Devyser shares. The acquisition strengthens Devyser's customer offering for diagnostic analysis and is expected to have a positive impact on Devyser's gross profit and gross margin.

In December 2018, Devyser entered into an agreement to acquire 29.9% of the shares in the Italian company SmartSeq. SmartSeq is the developer of the Amplicon Suite software, which is mainly sold to Devyser but also to other customers. The purchase consideration amounted to EUR 12,558 and included an obligation to make successive shareholders' contributions to SmartSeq. The share transfer agreement also contained an option to acquire the remaining 70.1% of the shares, which has now been exercised. The shares were sold by three founders of the company. Two of the founders are active in the company and will remain so even after the acquisition.   

"We are pleased to achieve our ambition to acquire the remaining stake in SmartSeq. SmartSeq has a high degree of expertise in software development for data analysis and its software is a key component in our offering in genetic testing. The acquisition strengthens our gross margin as we can now supply the software ourselves instead of purchasing it from SmartSeq," says Fredrik Alpsten, CEO of Devyser.

The Amplicon Suite software is a SaaS solution for data analysis that allows the user to upload data, perform analyses, interpret the results and report test results. Amplicon Suite is sold together with Devyser's reagent kit and is currently purchased from SmartSeq. The acquisition will be consolidated starting from February and is expected to improve Devyser's gross profit by MSEK 2-3 per year based on current sales. The acquisition is not expected to impact Devyser's earnings at EBIT level.

The acquisition is partly financed through an issue in kind of new shares in Devyser to one of the sellers. The board of directors has thus, on the basis of authorisation granted by the Annual General Meeting on 27 May 2021, resolved upon an issue of 81,083 new shares in Devyser, directed to the seller. The subscription price in the issue corresponds to the last paid price for the Devyser share on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market on 31 January 2022. The newly issued shares involve a dilution of approximately 0.5%. The total number of shares in Devyser after the share issue amounts to 15,880,069, divided on a total share capital of SEK 911,359.17037.

This information is information that Devyser Diagnostics AB (publ) is obliged to make public pursuant to the EU Market Abuse Regulation 596/2014. The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact persons below, on February 7, 2022 at 09:30 CET.