Houston-based Healgen Scientific has acquired American Bio Medica Corp.'s 22-acre factory and corporate headquarters in Columbia County, New York, part of an agreement approved in February to acquire the majority of the drug-test manufacturer's assets.
American Bio Medica shareholders voted last month to sell the company's assets to Healgen Scientific for $3 million after the two companies spent five years working together through distribution agreements.
As part of the asset sale, the 37-year-old American Bio Medica sold its 25,000-square-foot factory and office complex at 122 Smith Road in Stuyvesant, New York, located in the northwest corner of Columbia County, for $1.5 million, according to a deed filed March 7 with the county clerk's office.
Founded by entrepreneur and former merchant mariner Stan Cipkowski, American Bio Medica struggled over the past decade to compete against lower-priced drug-testing products that were manufactured overseas. Following Cipkowski's death in 2013, the company appointed a successor, Melissa Waterhouse, who spent a decade reducing overhead and working to rebuild a sales pipeline with fewer resources.
After losing its largest customer about a year ago to a competitor with a lower price, American Bio Medica began discussing a potential asset sale with Healgen. The two companies reached an agreement in December and the deal was approved last month.
"ABMC believes the losses it has reported over the last several years and most recently the significant loss reported for the nine months ended Sept. 30, 2022 will continue, as its primary business — onsite drugs of abuse tests — has become a commoditized market where price is the primary consideration for purchase," the company wrote in documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in January. "ABMC was not able to find a suitable alternative apart from the asset sale."
Healgen executives could not immediately be reached to comment about their plans for the real estate and other American Bio Medica assets. Healgen, a wholly owned subsidiary of Zhejiang Orient Gene Biotech Co. Ltd., develops, manufactures and commercializes in-vitro diagnostic test systems.
