Report: Buyer interest heating up for Swiss Dx company Unilabs

Amid a recent flurry of healthcare company consolidations, buyouts and sales this year, interest in snapping up Unilabs is heating up following last month's news that the Swiss diagnostics company was for sale.

Potential suitors include buyout firm Cinven and Australian medical-test provider Sonic Healthcare, Bloomberg reported, citing unnamed sources. Other interested buyers include Novo A/S, which is the largest shareholder of insulin maker Novo Nordisk ($NVO), as well as the private equity firm PAI Partners SAS, the news service said.

Reports began to circulate last month that Unilabs, which was founded in 1987, was for sale with a price tag estimated at around $1.7 billion. Bloomberg reported at the time that Apax and Nordic Capital were working with the firm Rothschild on the potential sale.

The Bloomberg report cautioned that any talks of a sale remain preliminary and the owners could decide not to sell. All the companies cited in the story declined to comment.

In June, Cinven snatched up German medical lab operator Synlab for $1.96 billion. That deal came just weeks after Cinven announced it was putting up $1.3 billion for French diagnostics company Labco.

- check out the Bloomberg story