MedLife starts Stem Cells Bank takeover in Timisoara

Private medical chain MedLife will tap into a new business segment by taking steps to acquire the major share package in Stem Cells Bank, based in Timisoara, the company announced in a press release.

The value of the transaction was not specified.

This will be the second transaction started by MedLife this year, after the acquisition of a 55 percent stake in SAMA medical center and Ultratest, a group of companies in Oltenia region.

Stem Cells Bank is active in Bucharest and Timisoara, the second location also hosting the stem cell bank.

“Five years after our first takeover of a local operator, we can confidently say that we already have relevant know-how and the acquisitions will continue to play an increasingly important part in our turnover. This new transaction would mean for us, first of all, the consolidation of our leadership position in the Western part of Romania, and, on the orthe hand, the inauguration of a new business line- that of stem cells collection and storage. The decision to start on this new business path is a natural step in the development of our business. More than 3,500 births take place annually in our three maternity hospitals, representing the highest number of births in the private medical field, and with the integration of this new service, we will be able to offer complete solutions for mother and baby within our own system, from pregnancy monitoring to the birth, stem cells storage and child care, everything under the MedLife umbrella,” said Mihai Marcu, president of the MedLife administration board.

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Once the transaction takes place, MedLife becomes major shareholder while the current shareholders will still remain at the helm of the company in the future.

“Ever since the first acquisitions, MedLife has kept  the full management of the companies wherein it became a shareholder, whether it bought a 51 percent or a 100 percent stake. This is in fact the policy we will have in the future as well. We have great trust in the entrepreneurs who developed these companies and we have much to learn from them. MedLife does not own the solutions and business ideas, it only helps in the implementation of corporate governance and ensures an integrated promotion of these units, also offering them financial support, if needed, At the moment, we are leading discussions with various entrepreneurs, some of them doctors, and we wish them to join our team by the end of the year,” said Marcu.

The Stem Cells Bank was opened in 2010 at Timisoara and has a stem cell processing system based on Biosafe Sepax 2 technology, being the only private stem cell bank in the Balkans to use this technology, which makes the entire process completely automatic, so that any contamination risk in the lab is completely eliminated.

The first local operator taken over by MedLife was Policlinica de Diagnostic Rapid in Brașov, where the company bought an 80 percent stake for EUR 3 million. This transaction was followed by other two transactions, that of the  Genesys Arad and the Eva maternity in Brasov.

MedLife aims to post a EUR 100 million turnover in 2015 and intends to pursue regional acquisition plans.

Otilia Haraga