PARIS: Antin Infrastructure Partners (Paris:ANTIN) has agreed with Dutch family office and investment platform Gryphion to acquire Emsere, a leading medical equipment rental specialist, providing mission-critical medical equipment and service solutions, including specialised logistics for clinical trials globally. The investment will be made by Antin’s Mid Cap Fund I.
Headquartered in Leiden, the Netherlands, Emsere provides contract research organisations (CROs) and pharmaceutical companies with specialised medical equipment such as centrifuges, vital signs devices, cardiovascular and respiratory monitoring machines, imaging devices and cardio-pulmonary exercise testing.
Founded in 1996, Emsere has over 13,000 pieces of equipment in its portfolio and delivers to over 100 countries through its own distribution centres and third-party relationships, making it a globally consolidated solution for all clinical trial equipment needs. Customers include six of the top 10 global pharmaceutical companies and seven of the top 10 CROs globally.
Emsere is well positioned in the fast-growing clinical trial equipment rental market, which continues to expand, driven by increasing demand for outsourcing and the growing need for more complex equipment and service solutions to keep pace with innovative and evolving clinical research endpoints. Customers are increasingly seeking flexible solutions that provide mission-critical equipment, compliant with evolving regulatory requirements, delivered globally and at scale.
Emsere’s services allow pharmaceutical companies and contract research organisations to fully focus on their core objective of innovative science and clinical trial execution, sparing them the need to devote time and capital expenditure to equipment that is only needed temporarily or to organise and co-ordinate complex logistics to clinical trial sites on a global scale.
Antin’s investment in Emsere continues its strong history of scaling companies in the health and medical sub-sectors within social infrastructure. Emsere’s CEO Patrice Gerard and the senior management team will invest alongside Antin.
Upon closing, this investment will be the eighth by Antin’s €2.2 billion Mid Cap Fund I. Antin’s mid cap strategy focuses on smaller and medium-sized investments in established infrastructure companies in Europe and North America across the energy and environment, digital, transport and social infrastructure sectors.
Angelika Schöchlin and Omar Meziane, respectively Managing Partner and Partner at Antin Infrastructure Partners, commented: “We are delighted to be partnering with Emsere’s management to support the company in its next stage of growth. Emsere is a global leader in an important and fast-growing segment of the social infrastructure sector, underpinned by favourable tailwinds and high barriers to entry. We are looking forward to working with Patrice and his team to seize the many opportunities ahead to consolidate Emsere’s position as the integrated equipment partner of choice for pharma companies and contract research organisations globally.”
William Ford, Chief Investment Officer at Gryphion, added: “It was a pleasure and an honour to work with Patrice Gerard as CEO, Jon Raven as CCO, Pierre Otto as CFO/COO and the rest of the Emsere team and its founders in the past few years in a true partnership, setting the strategy and accelerating the growth of the company together. We are convinced that Emsere has a great future ahead of it in a very interesting and dynamic market. As always, it’s hard to say goodbye to one of our portfolio companies but we are sure that Antin is the right partner to support Emsere’s future growth.”
Patrice Gerard, CEO of Emsere, stated: “We thank Gryphion for its support over the past several years, and are excited to benefit from Antin’s expertise and experience to continue our growth journey. Antin’s track record of scaling companies makes it the ideal partner to support us in delivering best-in-class clinical trial equipment and services to our blue-chip global customers and in accelerating our expansion.”
The transaction is expected to close in Q1 2026.
Antin was advised by Macquarie as financial adviser and Loyens & Loeff as legal adviser. Gryphion was advised by Moelis as financial adviser and DLA Piper as legal adviser.