NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Bio-Rad Laboratories announced yesterday that it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire antibody manufacturer AbD Serotec for €53 million ($69.7 million) in cash.
Bio-Rad is acquiring the firm from its current parent, German company MorphoSys, and expects to complete the deal in January.
Under the terms of the transaction, Bio-Rad will acquire all of MorphoSys's AbD Serotec research reagent and diagnostic business, comprising the AbD Serotec segment of MorphoSys as well as the subsidiaries MorphoSys UK, MorphoSys AbD GmbH, and MorphoSys US. In addition, MorphoSys said that the deal includes a fully paid-up, non-exclusive license to use MorphoSys's HuCAL technology for diagnostic and research purposes.
"With this acquisition, Bio-Rad will have access to a comprehensive catalog of antibodies allowing us to better serve our customers by offering total assay solutions that can be validated on our research platforms for western blotting, multiplex protein expression, ELISA, and cell sorting," Brad Crutchfield, president of Bio-Rad's Life Science Group, said in a statement. "In addition, we will be able to exploit a powerful in vitro technology to accelerate future antibody generation."