Danaher: ‘All indications show GE is in wonderful shape’

Danaher Corporation says customers are excited about the combination of Pall Biotech and GE Biopharma as it moves closer to completing the $21.4 billion acquisition.

In February, Danaher announced it had reached an agreement to acquire the biopharma division of GE Healthcare for $21.4 billion (€19.1 billion).

Danaher first entered the bioprocess space through its $13.8 billion acquisition of Pall Corporation in 2015. This acquisition will, therefore, make Danaher the largest vendor with a fully end-to-end bioprocessing offering.

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The deal is set to close in the fourth quarter this year, and speaking during Danaher’s second quarter 2019 financial call, CEO Tom Joyce said he continues to be impressed with the GE team.

“We remain really impressed by them, it’s a highly passionate and talented group with great industry experience. As you saw in Q1 from them the business is off to a great start in 2019,” he told stakeholders.

Figures for GE’s biopharma business are not available as the firm does not split revenues within its units, but the within GE Healthcare revenues were flat in Q1. However, Joyce said: “Their first quarter was at core growth above where they’ve been in the last couple of years. So all indications are the business is in wonderful shape.”

Balancing Pall and GE

Danaher has previously stated that it will not integrate the two bioprocess businesses, effectively running GE and Pall as separate units. Joyce was asked, therefore, if customer anticipation of the GE Bio acquisition is having any impact on Pall demand, positive or negative.

While Joyce could not point to anything specific on the demand side, he did cite anecdotal evidence of excitement among customers regarding the combined offering, specifically a “significant Pall customer” in China that also happens to be a GE customer.

“In this particular case, there was an appreciation for the fact that the combination of those two businesses in terms of the type of service and support that that customer would expect, the fact that we become more meaningful to one another in a positive and constructive way was something that they feel very good about.”

For the second quarter 2019, total sales across all of Danaher’s businesses stood at $5.16 billion, up 3.5% year-on-year.