Thermo Fisher buys Solventum's purification and filtration business for $4.1 billion

(Reuters) -Contract drug manufacturer Thermo Fisher Scientific said on Tuesday it will buy Solventum's purification and filtration business for about $4.1 billion, sending the latter's shares up around 9%.

The deal should allow Thermo to enter the filtration category in bioprocessing, where peers Danaher and Repligen are more strongly positioned, said Leerink Partners analyst Puneet Souda.

The business, which provides filters for the purification of food or beverages and drugs during development, brought in about $1 billion in revenue in 2024, Thermo said.

Evercore analyst Vijay Kumar said the deal is expected to complement Thermo's bioprocessing business, which provides tools and services to accelerate the drug development process for biopharma companies.

Last month, the company forecast annual profit above Wall Street estimates, banking on improved demand for its products and services used in developing therapies.

In the first year of ownership, Thermo expects the deal to be dilutive to its adjusted per share profit by 6 cents. Excluding financing costs, the deal is expected to be accretive by 28 cents in that period.

In January, activist investor Nelson Peltz's Trian Fund Management said in a letter to Solventum shareholders that the company's spin-off from 3M had not been living up to potential.

Trian, which as per LSEG data had a 4.9% stake in Solventum as of December 31, had said divestitures could accelerate the company's ability to reduce debt and help it allocate resources for dividends, share repurchases and mergers and acquisitions.

The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of 2025.

(Reporting by Christy Santhosh and Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)