Former Gen-Probe CEO Partners with PE Firm in Hunt for Buyout Deals

Carl Hull 2014 (photo used with permission)

Carl Hull, who was Gen-Probe CEO when Bedford, MA-based Hologic agreed to pay $3.7 billion to acquire the San Diego diagnostics company in 2012, has embarked on a new venture backed by GTCR, the Chicago private equity firm.

Hull and Eric Tardif, a former investment banker who was a managing director at Gen-Probe, founded San Diego-based Maravai Life Sciences in a partnership with GTCR to roll up businesses focused on biomedical diagnostics and life sciences tools. Together, they plan to acquire companies that are aligned with their strategy, with GTCR investing as much as $300 million.

“We have a significant list of possible acquisitions,” Hull said by phone this morning. He said he left Hologics almost a year ago, and took some time off to travel. The Maravai partners already were acquainted with GTCR, which approached them about forming the new company.

In a statement released with GTCR, Hull says, “We are actively looking for acquisitions and believe there will continue to be a number of compelling investment opportunities in the market. Working with Maravai, we are in a unique position to evaluate and pursue these investments.”

Carl Hull
Carl Hull

Hull joined Gen-Probe in early 2007 as COO. He was promoted to CEO in 2009 and became chairman in January 2012, just a few months before Hologics’ buyout offer was disclosed. He previously held a number of executive positions at various diagnostics and life sciences companies, including Applied Biosystems, Ventana Medical Systems and Abbott Laboratories.

Tardif joined Gen-Probe as a senior vice president in 2009, after spending more than a decade covering life sciences clients at Morgan Stanley and other firms. At Gen-Probe, Tardif was responsible for corporate strategy, evaluating and executing all mergers and acquisitions, including the Hologic deal, and overseeing post-acquisition integration of acquired companies.

“We are very excited to partner with Carl and Eric to build a leading company in the diagnostics and life sciences industry,” GTCR Managing Director Dean Mihas says in the statement. “They have exceptional track records of thoughtful leadership and value creation. Their expertise, strategic vision and operational abilities make them ideal partners as GTCR commits to a platform in this attractive industry.”

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.