Axcel announces the acquisition of Orion Diagnostica

Axcel, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based private equity firm has acquired Finnish company Orion Diagnostica Oy, a leading player in the attractive point-of-care (POC) diagnostics market with a large portfolio of high-quality products.

Together with Orion Diagnostica’s management team, Axcel intends to continue building on the company’s strong market position and sees a number of attractive opportunities to expand geographically and extend the product offering.

Orion Diagnostica, founded in 1974 and led by president Kaisa Tarkkanen, has been an independent division of Orion Corporation, a Finnish pharmaceuticals company listed on Nasdaq Helsinki. Orion Diagnostica’s product offering enables healthcare practitioners to quickly and accurately carry out tests during a patient’s visit to diagnose conditions and determine correct treatment.

Orion Diagnostica’s technology can be used to test a wide range of conditions, for instance whether a patient has a bacterial or viral infection, and thus whether antibiotics should be prescribed, thereby addressing antibiotics resistance, which is a growing global problem.

Orion Diagnostica has a strong position in several European markets, as well as China, and is entering the attractive US market, positioning the company for long-term growth as POC testing becomes a more common feature in the US.