Qiagen to Fatten Protein Sample-Prep Business with $10M Nextal Acquisition

NEW YORK, June 30 (GenomeWeb News) - Qiagen plans to send $9.7 million to acquire privately held Nextal Biotechnology, a provider of sample-prep consumables for protein crystallization, Qiagen said today.

Terms of the deal, which will enable Qiagen to sell standardized protein products that encompass standardized cloning, expression, purification, and crystallization, call for Qiagen to spend the $9.7 million buy all of the outstanding capital stock of Nextal. An additional consideration of approximately US$4.5 million is subject to certain undisclosed milestones.

Nextal, based in Montreal, markets a suite of consumables designed to "simplify the process of sample preparation of proteins for subsequent crystallographic analysis," Perlegen said. The technology is believed to be a good business fit with Qiagen's protein sample-prep offerings, including its Qproteome line.

"Through this acquisition we can extend our sample preparation leadership into the rapidly growing area of sample preparation for biological macromolecule crystallography," Peer Schatz, Qiagen's chief executive officer, said in a statement.

Qiagen, based in Venlo, the Netherlands, said it expects to incur "less than" $1 million in charges during its fiscal second quarter 2005, but said Nextal will add approximately $3 million in net annual sales, and will be neutral to net income to Qiagen's 2006 earnings.