A cross-border Private Equity and Healthcare team advised GeneWerk on its merger with Protagen Protein Services.

GeneWerk, an Ampersand portfolio company, is a cell and gene therapy testing laboratory focused on providing preclinical and clinical trial patient sample analysis services.

Ampersand is a middle market private equity firm with more than $2 billion of assets under management dedicated to growth-oriented investments in the healthcare sector.

PPS is a world leading CRO and recognized expert in analytical services in protein science and gene therapy products.

The merger creates a leading partner for the worldwide biopharmaceutical industry to benefit from the most advanced, integrated set of analytical services capabilities in biologic development, especially in gene and cell therapy-related testing, from early development through drug approval to commercialization. The combined organization will have more than 175 employees across four sites in Europe and North America.

The Goodwin team was led by James Barrett, Ed AmerMaya Fe Holzhauer, and Jan Schinkoeth (Corporate); and included Heiko Penndorf, Dan Karelitz, Nicole Spiteri, and Chris Zhao (Tax); Lucas Schmitz, Gleb Lidman, and Peter Junghaenel (Real Estate); James Donohue (Private Investment Funds); Bradford Smith; Natascha George and Morgan Frisoli (ERISA & Executive Compensation); Marty Gomez (Intellectual Property); Cynthia Wells and Brynn Peltz (Financial Industry); Rich Matheny (Global Trade); and Kara Kuritz (Antitrust); with invaluable assistance from Khalid Elwanni, and Chris Lubrano.

For more details, read the press release.