MT. LAUREL, N.J.– inTEST Corporation (NYSE American: INTT), a global supplier of innovative test and process solutions for use in manufacturing and testing across a wide range of markets, including automotive, defense/aerospace, industrial, medical, semiconductor and telecommunications, today announced it has acquired substantially all of the assets of Z-Sciences Corp., a developer of ultra-cold storage solutions for the medical cold chain market. The terms of the Z-Sciences acquisition were not disclosed.
“This small, tuck-in acquisition is an ideal demonstration of our strategy to grow through innovative technologies with an eye towards fast growing, adjacent markets. Integrating Z-Sciences into inTEST provides both a low-cost method for adding ultra-cold storage to our ultra-cold test solutions offerings and allows us to gain a presence in the medical cold chain market with a portfolio of refrigeration and freezer solutions. We believe we can further advance Z-Sciences ultra-cold storage and refrigeration solutions by leveraging our engineering expertise, manufacturing capabilities and financial strength to rapidly grow the business,” commented Richard N. “Nick” Grant, Jr., President & CEO.
He added, “Life Sciences is a key target market for inTEST. With the acquisition of this technology, we are enhancing our medical offerings and with some incremental investments, we believe we can build a scalable solution to accelerate growth in cold chain applications.” The Company estimates the targeted addressable cold chain market of niche, underserved applications to be approximately $200 million.
Founded in 2004 by Jean Fallacara and based in Montreal, Canada, Z-Sciences develops and sells high-performance biomedical refrigerators and freezers that meet versatile applications, including ultra-cold storage solutions for biological sample banks, blood safety, vaccine safety, medical supplies and reagent safety. Mr. Fallacara and his staff will be joining inTEST and the business will be integrated into the Thermal segment. In connection with his prospective employment, Mr. Fallacara would receive a multi-year restricted stock award with vesting provisions which would be contingent upon achieving future performance milestones related to sales growth and profitability of products related to the Z-Sciences business.
Mr. Grant concluded, “We have a robust acquisition pipeline that we are building by capitalizing on the depth and breadth of relationships we have throughout our various target markets and industries. Our team has identified a set of acquisition targets that we believe will bring differentiated or innovative technologies, provide complementary capabilities, such as ultra-cold storage, or enable deeper and broader reach within our targeted industries and geographies. While we expect to grow organically through new product development, sales channel enhancements and marketing prowess, we are focused on programmatic acquisitions being a key element of our growth as well.”
