NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) — WaferGen Biosystems said today that it has acquired the next-generation sequencing library preparation business of IntegenX.
Under the agreement, WaferGen Inc., a subsidiary of WaferGen Biosystems, has acquired all of IntegenX's assets surrounding instruments and reagents related to NGS library preparation, including the Apollo 324 instrument and PrepX reagents.
The purchase price for the acquisition was composed of an up-front cash payment of $2 million; a $1.25 million secured promissory note due on Jan. 6, 2017; up to three earn-out payments based on certain revenue thresholds in 2014, 2015, and 2016; and WaferGen's assumption of certain liabilities related to the acquired business.
IntegenX's NGS library prep business is "highly synergistic with our existing products, especially our NGS target enrichment SmartChip TE offering," WaferGen President and CEO Ivan Trifunovich said in a statement.
Trifunovich added that the combined products "address a wide spectrum of customer needs in sample preparation for NGS and enable one-stop shopping for laboratories performing targeted sequencing."
Concurrent with the acquisition, and following its September 2013 fundraising, WaferGen has also shuffled and reduced the size of its board of directors. Upon closing of the acquisition, IntegenX CEO Robert Schueren joined WaferGen's board. In addition, WaferGen appointed William McKenzie, most recently vice president and general manager of molecular diagnostics at PerkinElmer, as a director.
Meantime, Scott Davidson, Joseph Pesce, Robert Coradini, and Timothy Triche have all recently stepped down from WaferGen's board.