July 14, 2016 (Boston, MA) – Covington Associates LLC, a leading middle market investment bank, announced its role as exclusive financial advisor to ViroCyt (“ViroCyt” or “the Company”) regarding its successful sale to Sartorius. Sartorius, a leading international pharmaceutical and laboratory tools provider, today acquired ViroCyt, an innovator in the field of rapid virus quantification.  Based outside of Boulder, CO, ViroCyt is an emerging company with high double-digit growth.  The transaction values ViroCyt at approximately $16 million.

“Sartorius is an ideal partner for us due to its global presence and strong reputation for innovation and quality.  By joining forces, we will drive further adoption of our novel approach to virus quantification both in the US and in international markets.  ViroCyt is proud to join the Sartorius family and the partnership is a positive development for our customers, employees and shareholders,” said Robert Kline, President and CEO of ViroCyt.

ViroCyt’s customers come from pharma and biopharma R&D labs, vaccine manufacturers, and academic institutions focused on virology.  The Company’s unique automated platform, which integrates instruments, software and reagents, delivers high quality results that are significantly faster than commonly used methods for virus counting.

“The combination of ViroCyt’s innovative products with Sartorius’ global customer channels and impressive growth profile will allow for rapid acceleration of market adoption for ViroCyt’s products.  These are uniquely suited to address the needs for a rapid, simple and cost-effective virus quantification for applications in the development of vaccines, viral gene therapies and oncolytic viruses, and viral-mediated protein expression,” notes Steven Mermelstein, Managing Director at Covington Associates and lead advisor to ViroCyt.

Cooley LLP acted as legal counsel to ViroCyt.

About Covington Associates LLC

Covington Associates is an investment banking firm offering advisory services in the areas of mergers and acquisitions (“M&A”), capital raising, strategic advisory, fairness opinions, and valuations to middle-market companies across the Healthcare, Business Services, Consumer & Industrial, and Technology verticals.  Founded in 1991, with offices in Boston and New York, the vision for Covington has been to provide clients with the highest caliber of senior-level attention and to remain an advice-driven and results-focused organization.  Since its inception, Covington Associates has completed more than 200 transactions globally for both private and publicly traded companies totaling over $15 billion.

Within Healthcare, Covington’s Life Science Tools & Diagnostics practice, led by Steve Mermelstein and Dave Wood, has executed numerous transactions over the past few years with clients that offer a range of products and services for the life sciences research, drug discovery, and clinical diagnostics markets.  Covington has recently completed M&A transactions with market leaders, including Eurofins (ERF:EN Paris), Thermo Fisher (NYSE: TMO), Genoptix/Novartis (NYSE: NVS), Life Technologies (since acquired by Thermo Fisher), and Veracyte (Nasdaq: VCYT).

For more information, visit www.covllc.com.

About ViroCyt

ViroCyt, Inc. was created with the goal of bringing game-changing solutions to the Life Science industry, initially with its Virus Counter® instrument and ViroTag® portfolio of antibody-based detection reagents. Its primary focus is replacing outdated technologies that slow down the pace of virus-related research and product development.  For more information, visit http://virocyt.com/

Covington Contacts

Steven A. Mermelstein, Managing Director (steve@covllc.com)

David E. Wood, PhD, Director (dwood@covllc.com)

 Covington Associates LLC

617-314-3907