PerkinElmer to buy antibodies maker BioLegend for about $5.3 billion

(Reuters) - Medical diagnostic firm PerkinElmer Inc said on Monday it would buy BioLegend, a privately held maker of reagents and antibodies used in medical research, for about $5.25 billion in a cash-and-stock deal.

The deal, the largest ever for PerkinElmer, will allow the company to grow in areas such as clinical diagnostics and food safety testing, the diagnostic company said.

PerkinElmer said it has bridge financing from Goldman Sachs Bank USA to cover the cash portion of the transaction. The company said the deal is expected to provide an estimated growth of $0.30 of adjusted earnings per share in the first full year following close and greater than $0.50 in the second year.

BioLegend, which has more than 700 employees primarily based in the United States and whose revenue in 2022 is expected to be $380 million, provides antibodies and reagents in areas such as biologics and cell and gene therapy.

BioLegend's San Diego, California-based campus will become the global center for the development of chemical reagents used in medical research for the combined company, PerkinElmer said.

(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla and Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Krishna Chandra Eluri)