NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Beckman Coulter said yesterday it has agreed to buy the remaining 80.1 percent of NexGen Diagnostics, a spin-out of Lumigen, which it bought in late 2006 for $185 million.
NexGen owns intellectual property that Beckman Coulter hopes to use for immunoassay and nucleic acid-based diagnostic testing.
Because NexGen’s assets are in the form of intellectual property that will require development, Beckman Coulter said it expects to take a charge of around $36 million for in-process R&D after the deal closes in the fourth quarter of 2007.
The IP is centered on a non-separation immunoassay technology that cuts out “time-consuming steps,” Beckman said, adding that it allows “rapid isolation of DNA or RNA from a patient sample without a separate step or reagent.”
Financial terms of the agreement were not released.