Thermo Fisher to buy British firm for $2.6 billion

Thermo Fisher Scientific said Monday it will buy the British specialty diagnostics firm Binding Site in a deal valued at $2.6 billion. Waltham-based Thermo Fisher, the largest Massachusetts company by stock market value at more than $197 billion, will take over the firm headquartered in Birmingham, England, in an all-cash deal led by the private equity firm Nordic Capital. Serving clinicians and laboratory professionals worldwide, Binding Site provides diagnostic tests and instruments to improve the diagnosis and management of blood cancers and immune system disorders. It has more than 1,100 employees globally, Thermo Fisher said. Binding Site’s business has been growing about 10 percent a year and is on track to generate more than $220 million in revenue this year, Thermo Fisher said. Marc N. Casper, Thermo Fisher’s chief executive, said Binding Site is particularly well respected for diagnosing and monitoring multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer that affects plasma cells. Roughly 35,000 new US cases are expected to be diagnosed this year, according to the American Cancer Society. Thermo Fisher, which makes scientific instruments and helps manufacture drugs, has made a series of multibillion-dollar acquisitions in recent years. Last year it announced it was paying $17.4 billion for PPD, a North Carolina company that helps drug makers run clinical trials. In August, Thermo Fisher officially opened a 300,000-square-foot manufacturing plant in Plainville that underscored the firm’s investment in the growing field of gene therapy. The company made a major commitment to gene therapy in 2019 when it bought Brammer Bio, a Cambridge manufacturer of viral vectors, for about $1.7 billion. Thermo Fisher employs more than 100,000 people worldwide. That includes at least 3,500 employees in Massachusetts at 15 sites in Cambridge, Waltham, Lexington, Franklin, and nine other cities and towns, said the company. — JONATHAN SALTZMAN