NEW YORK – Hologic said last week that its board of directors has authorized a $1.5 billion stock repurchase program with a five-year term. In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said that the authorization is in addition to a prior repurchase authorization that had $190 million remaining as of Sept. 12. The firm announced two years ago that it had authorized a $1 billion stock repurchase program, also with a five-year term.
Illumina and LGC Biosearch Technologies, part of LGC Group's Diagnostics and Genomics business, announced a strategic partnership this week to accelerate the adoption of genomics in agricultural applications. The companies plan to combine Biosearch's targeted genotyping-by-sequencing library prep method, Amp-seq, with Illumina's sequencing technology for researchers and breeders in the Asia-Pacific region except China and in Latin America. The partnership will focus on commercializing products for applications that include plant breeding to develop new crop varieties and animal breeding to enhance certain livestock traits.
Agilent Technologies said this week that its board of directors has approved a quarterly cash dividend of $.24 per share of its common stock, payable on Oct. 23 to shareholders of record as of Oct. 1.
Separately, Agilent said this week that it has completed its purchase of Canadian contract development and manufacturing organization Biovectra. The deal was initially announced in July and valued at $925 million. Biovectra develops and manufactures biologics, highly potent active pharmaceutical ingredients, and other targeted pharmaceutical ingredients. It will now be included in Agilent’s Diagnostics and Genomics Group.
Abbott's board of directors this week declared a quarterly common dividend of $.55 per share, payable on Nov. 15 to shareholders of record as of Oct. 15.
Eurofins Genomics US this week announced the opening of a new oligonucleotide manufacturing facility. The new 75,000-square-foot facility can synthesize DNA and RNA and has separate production trains for research use only (RUO) and good manufacturing practice (GMP) products.
Centogene said this week that EY Wirtschaftsprüfungsgesellschaft has decided it will not serve as the company's public accounting firm for the current fiscal and calendar year. According to Centogene, EY's reports on the firm's 2023 and 2022 financial statements did not contain any adverse opinion, and there were no disagreements with EY on any matter of accounting principles or practices, financial statement disclosure, or auditing scope or procedure.
Liquid biopsy firm Angle said this week that it has inked a deal with Recursion Pharmaceuticals to conduct a pilot study. The firms did not provide further details on the study other than that it will involve Angle’s Parsortix CTC analysis and that there may be larger follow-on contracts if the pilot study is successful.
PAVmed said this week that it will deconsolidate Lucid Diagnostics from its financial statements as part of an effort to regain compliance with the Nasdaq's listing requirements. As a result, PAVmed will no longer report consolidated financial results that reflect Lucid's operating losses. Going forward, the value of Lucid's common stock held by PAVmed will be reported as an asset on the firm's balance sheet. PAVmed remains Lucid's largest shareholder, and the deconsolidation does not affect its holdings in Lucid.
Verily this week announced the expansion of its wastewater testing business into Europe. The Alphabet health technology company has entered an exclusive partnership with Bangor University in Wales. The collaboration will incorporate Bangor's wastewater-based public health surveillance program and testing lab as well as Verily's high-throughput wastewater lab automation and expanded pathogen coverage. Verily and Bangor are currently working to onboard customers such as governments and life science companies for both wastewater testing and data insights.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb.