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LabTechnologist.com presents its periodic round up of recent industry news with the latest developments in the fight to buy Biosite as well as news from Agilent, Dionex, and Millipore.
Inverness has upped the ante in the fight to acquire Biosite by offering $92.50 per share - an increase of $2.50 per share on the company's initial offer which was matched last week by Beckman Coulter.
"As we have stated before, we are committed to consummating this compelling transaction and through this offer have enhanced the speed, certainty and value of our proposal accordingly," said Ron Zwanziger, CEO of Inverness.
Biosite's board has said that the latest offer is reasonably likely to lead to a superior offer than the one signed with Beckman Coulter on March 24, 2007.
Agilent's $246m (€181m) acquisition of Stratagene, announced in April, has been approved by the US Federal antitrust regulators.
The acquisition is expected to broaden the customer base of both companies and increase Agilent's market share of the total Life Sciences market, estimated at $14bn to over 6 per cent.
Dionex has opened a new, wholly owned subsidiary, Dionex Ireland, to expand the company's international sales and distribution capabilities.
"Europe accounted for about 40 per cent of the company's sales in fiscal 2006," said René Trost, Dionex' vice president of European Sales & Service.
"With unique challenges and growth opportunities in each European location, the addition of Dionex Ireland leverages our ability to fully address the Irish market."
Millipore and Gen-Probe have expanded their collaboration allowing Millipore to market Gen-Probe's mycoplasma tissue culture non-isotopic (MTC-NI) test to the biopharmaceutical market.
The assay is an easy-to-use DNA probe-based system that can quickly and cost-effectively detect mycoplasma - a common contaminant found in biopharmaceuticals.
"The expansion of our partnership with Gen-Probe reflects our conviction in the long-term potential for developing faster and more accurate detection of microorganisms in biopharmaceutical production," said Jean-Paul Mangeolle, president of Millipore's Bioprocess Division.
"We are now able to package MTC-NI tests with our mycoplasma clearance products."
