NEW YORK – Agilent Technologies announced on Tuesday that it plans to acquire precision oncology firm Resolution Bioscience for up to $695 million in cash and milestone payments.
Under the deal, expected to close in April, Agilent will pay $550 million in cash on closing and up to an additional $145 million based on future performance milestones.
Kirkland, Washington-based Resolution Bioscience has a next-generation sequencing-based noninvasive liquid biopsy test platform that has been designed for both centralized CLIA test services and distributable kits. In 2020, the company had $35 million in revenue and expects to generate $50 million to $55 million in revenues in 2021. According to Agilent, the acquisition is expected to be slightly dilutive to its earnings per share in fiscal 2021 and 2022.
Resolution Bioscience's homologous recombination deficiency test has received breakthrough device designation from the US Food and Drug Administration. Last year, the firm also entered a commercial partnership with LabCorp to enable access to its Resolution ctDx Lung test, which detects actionable mutations in genes associated with non-small cell lung cancer.
"By adding Resolution Bioscience’s liquid biopsy-based diagnostic technologies to our portfolio, we are strengthening Agilent’s offering to our biopharma customers and boosting the growth of our diagnostics and genomics business," Agilent President and CEO Mike McMullen said in a statement. "This also accelerates our strategy to broaden access to precision oncology testing for patients worldwide through distributed NGS-based diagnostic kits."