Nonprofit LifeNet Acquires Biotech With San Antonio Presence

San Antonio — Virginia nonprofit LifeNet Health has acquired the assets of a biotech company that has a top executive based in San Antonio.

In acquiring Birmingham, AL-based Vivo Biosciences, LifeNet gets a cell-based technology used to test and analyze the safety and effectiveness of experimental drugs. The nonprofit, which claimed $217.9 million in assets at the end of 2014, provides bio-implants and organs for transplantation and plans to incorporate Vivo Biosciences into its life sciences division, which prepares products such as human cells for medical research.

Steven Schmind, Vivo’s San Antonio-based chief operating officer, says he will stay on with the company in the Alamo City after the acquisition. Vivo’s CEO and founder, Raj Singh, will also stay on, according to a press release. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed.

Vivo was founded in 2004 and sells a technology, HuBiogel, that the company says can grow 3-D models of cell cultures that mimic both normal and diseased human tissue.

Vivo has received more than $2 million in SBIR and STTR grants from federal government agencies since its founding, as well as $2 million from Bethesda, MD-based Toucan Capital in 2007, according to the company. Mountain Brook, AL-based Greer Capital Advisors is also an investor.

Author: David Holley

David is the national correspondent at Xconomy. He has spent most of his career covering business of every kind, from breweries in Oregon to investment banks in New York. A native of the Pacific Northwest, David started his career reporting at weekly and daily newspapers, covering murder trials, city council meetings, the expanding startup tech industry in the region, and everything between. He left the West Coast to pursue business journalism in New York, first writing about biotech and then private equity at The Deal. After a stint at Bloomberg News writing about high-yield bonds and leveraged loans, David relocated from New York to Austin, TX. He graduated from Portland State University.