Dow Schofield Watts Transaction Services advised Foresight on its £2m investment in Epistem, a Manchester-based contract research organisation.
It is the fourth contract research deal for which DSW has provided financial due diligence and highlights its expertise within the sector.
Foresight’s investment will support Epistem’s management buy-out from genedrive plc, and will enable the company to invest in Next Generation Sequencing technologies.
Catriona Lang and Ros Jones of Dow Schofield Watts Transaction Services advised Foresight. Catriona also advised on a previous deal in May, when Foresight led a £4m investment round in Bedford-based Mologic, which provides CRO and manufacturing (CMO) services.
Chris Wardle of Foresight said: “Cat and her team worked to tight timelines to deliver the FDD on a complex investment. The team was well-received by an often sceptical management team, and went beyond what was required to allow Foresight to fully understand the business model and sensitise the forecasts – an excellent piece of work.”
The DSW team also advised Manchester-based Concept Life Sciences on its acquisition of Aquila Biomedical, a pre-clinical CRO, in October 2017, and it provided due diligence for Nottingham-based Quotient Clinical on its acquisition of a neighbouring company, formulation development specialist Co-Formulate in 2015.
Paul McCluskey, president of Concept Life Sciences, said: “DSW’s work was carried out to a high standard and their reporting was clear and easy to follow – a real benefit at the business end of an M&A process. I was particularly impressed with the way Ed and Nick interrogated the validity of the order book and pipeline which was one of our key focus areas. They also supported us through the locked box workstream both pre and post completion. We look forward to working with them again in the future.”