NEW YORK, March 10 (GenomeWeb News) - Molecular Devices has acquired Xsira Pharmaceutical's Transfluor Imaging technology assets, the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based biotech tools company said late yesterday.
Molecular Devices paid $11 million in cash for the technology, which is used for visualizing cellular events and detecting receptor activation. The firm said that the acquisition will strengthen its effort to provide imaging solutions to the drug-discovery market. It plans to begin licensing the technology to customers in the second quarter of 2005.
Xsira Pharmaceuticals, which developed the technology with Duke University, said it will now focus on drug discovery, and said that Molecular Devices will license its Transfluor technology back to its original owner to aid in that effort.
Molecular Devices is in the financial position to make such a purchase. It reported a 43-percent increase in fourth quarter revenues for 2004 in February.