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Discovery Life Sciences Acquires Biomarker Services Firm Targos Molecular Pathology

NEW YORK — Discovery Life Sciences said on Tuesday that it has acquired German biomarker development services firm Targos Molecular Pathology.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Targos provides standardized clinical biomarker development and application services to international pharmaceutical and diagnostic customers. Discovery said the acquisition will build on its 2019 purchase of immunohistochemistry, or IHC, services provider QualTek Molecular Laboratories.

Huntsville, Alabama-based Discovery said it will combine its North American IHC pathology laboratories with Targos' operations into a single global scientific team. That new global IHC and pathology service will work with Discovery HudsonAlpha, the firm's sequencing and bioinformatics division, to provide expanded biomarker-driven drug and diagnostic research and development services.

"The addition of Targos immediately expands Discovery's capabilities on a global scale to support our customers' tissue biomarker programs for every stage of research, from assay development to assay validation, global clinical trials to pathologist training for postmarket adoption into clinical routine," Christiaan Neeleman, president of Discovery's European operations and divisional head of its global tissue biomarker services operations, said in a statement.

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