Limerston Capital Acquire Source BioScience’s Stability Storage Unit

Limerston Capital has completed the acquisition of Source BioScience’s Stability Storage business, underlining its commitment to the healthcare, testing and certification sectors.

The newly created standalone company will be called Astoriom and will allow the company to focus on biorepository as its core growth area, expanding its footprint within high-value pharmaceutical and biologic markets with a buy-and-build growth strategy in the US and European markets.

Headquartered in Rochdale, Astoriom has 33 employees. The company offers storage, manufacturing and service and validation for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, contract manufacturers and analytical testing companies across the globe, with a strong presence across the UK, Ireland and the USA.

Astoriom’s core service line is outsourced temperature and humidity-controlled environment storage services for stability trials, retained samples and long-term storage of biologic samples. This is an essential part of the drug development process allowing new products to be evaluated under a variety of critically controlled conditions.

The Astoriom leadership team will include Philip Bradley, who has eight years with the business and will remain as General Manager, with a focus on day-to-day operations.

João Rosa, Founding Partner, Limerston Capital commented: “We see enormous potential in the stability storage sector. Astoriom is a very secure business with a great team. Geographically its sites are well spread, it has a broad customer base and an excellent reputation making it well-placed to grow and we are already looking at potential acquisitions, particularly in the United States where there are very few specialist players.  We are looking forward to working with Phil and his highly capable team to leverage the success of the business to date, growing its presence in target sectors especially bio-storage and the pharmaceutical market.”

The deal is Limerston’s fifth platform deal in the life sciences space and third platform deal in its second fund, Limerston Capital Partners II. Limerston has already developed its portfolio in adjacent markets, with a strong track record within the pharmaceutical and medical device testing markets, as well as with drug discovery, development and manufacturing. Its most recent acquisition was in April with Concept Life Sciences, an established Contract Research Organisation. 

Phil Bradley, General Manager of Astoriom added: “Limerston Capital will be an excellent partner for our business, allowing us much greater commercial focus as we operate independently. We look forward to working with their team of hands-on operating partners to help guide us in realising the enormous growth potential now available to us.”