Sema4 Looks to M&A After Successful SPAC

Sema4 is acquiring Opko Health’s subsidiary, GeneDx, in a deal that could have a price tag of $623 million if milestones are added in. The acquisition is set to close in 2Q22.

The combined company could have $350 million in pro forma 2022 revenue. GeneDx specializes in rare disease diagnostic and exome sequencing services.

The Gaithersburg, MD-based company brings more than 300,000 clinical exomes and more than 2.1 million annotated phenotypes to strengthen Sema4’s 12 million de-identified clinical records for Centrellis, a health intelligence platform, and Traversa, its genomic analysis platform for optimizing health screenings.

“This acquisition gives us the opportunity to accelerate the use of genomics as standard of care by providing a deeper menu of precision medicine solutions to our health system partners to better meet their clinical needs,” said Eric Schadt, PhD, Founder and CEO of Sema4. “Adding GeneDx’s comprehensive dataset and capabilities to our offerings enables us to inform on an even broader range of diseases, further closing the gap between the practice of medicine and the availability of more clinically actionable guidance. GeneDx’s operational prowess and market-leading cost structure in exome and genome sequencing will also help accelerate our path to improved gross margins and profitability.”

 The acquisition comes less than a year after Sema4 went public through a nearly special purpose acquisition corporation merger with CM Life Sciences.