Milwaukee-based The Dohmen Co. has agreed to sell its Dohmen Life Science Services business to Chicago-based Water Street Healthcare Partners and New York City-based JLL Partners.
The transaction is expected to close in March for an undisclosed price.
Formally launched in 2014, Dohmen Life Science Services supports several hundred biotech, pharmaceutical and medical device companies by providing outsourced services in technology, marketing, supply chain, patient support, finance and compliance. It has offices nationwide.
JLL Partners is a private equity firm. Water Street Healthcare Partners is a health care strategic investment firm. It will merge DLSS with its commercialization services platform, which is aimed at market access solutions. Water Street’s commercialization services platform, which has about 380 employees, was created last year when Alliance Life Sciences, Health Strategies Group and The Access Group merged. DLSS will retain its branding and leadership team, which will report to a board guiding the platform.
The companies expect the combination of the platforms will create a leading offering in the life science commercialization space, serving more than 300 clients in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors. A spokeswoman for Water Street said DLSS brings patient services capabilities to the platform. Water Street plans to retain all of DLSS’ employees at its current locations, she said.
“Adding DLSS to our life sciences platform is a game changer,” said Jim Lang, executive chairman of the platform. “Its client-focused culture and service capabilities are a strong strategic fit with our companies. As one entity, the center of our DNA will be to engage our combined capabilities to go above and beyond to delight our customers.”
The Dohmen Co. also has three other entities under its umbrella: health care innovation investment arm Dohmen Investment Group, health care nonprofit Dohmen Company Foundation and health care technology platform developer Red Arrow. There are 750 DLSS employees, about 125 of whom work out of Milwaukee. Its other locations are in Emoryville and Ontario, California; Denver; St. Louis and Memphis. Dohmen Co. has a total of 900 employees.
“At Dohmen, we’ve been creating a more efficient, effective and easy-to-use health experience for 160 years,” said Cynthia LaConte, chief executive officer of The Dohmen Co. “We built, launched and grew DLSS as a disruptive alternative to traditional models that aren’t well suited to serving companies with targeted therapies and smaller patient populations. That’s why it was important for us to find partners that could not only scale the business but could add strategically important capabilities for our clients.”
“Our global platform is ideally positioned to support the life sciences industry as it continues to develop targeted therapies,” said Dan Agroskin, partner at JLL Partners. “We are pleased to partner with Water Street to invest our combined expertise and resources to optimize the impact of these important new products through organic initiatives and targeted acquisitions.”
