NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Cepheid disclosed in its Form 10-Q filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission this week that it paid $18.5 million during the first six months of the year to acquire one of its distributors and certain assets of another distributor. A company spokesperson decline to provide further comment or identify the names of the purchased assets.
Cepheid officials had noted during a January conference call that the firm had acquired a business segment of its German distributor and intended to acquire its South African distributor. The goal of the deals is to expand Cepheid's direct sales operations.
Bruker's stock was downgraded to Market Perform from Outperform by investment bank Leerink Swann this week, after Bruker trimmed its full-year revenue and adjusted earnings-per-share forecast for 2012. The bank also cut its valuation on the stock to $11.50-$12.50 per share from $13.
Illumina disclosed in its Form 10-Q this week that it has settled a patent infringement case with LadaTech. In February, a federal jury had found that Illumina infringed a LadaTech patent covering a DNA amplification process required for the sample preparation and cluster station steps used in Illumina's DNA sequencing systems.
At the time, Illumina said that it would appeal the decision. The litigation has been dismissed with the settlement, but Illumina didn't disclose the terms of the agreement.
In addition, Illumina noted in the quarterly filing that it spent $14.8 million during the first six months of the year in relation to Roche's hostile takeover attempt. It said the cost was primarily related to legal, advisory, proxy solicitation, and other professional services fees. Roche failed in its nearly $7 bid to acquire Illumina.
PerkinElmer said this week that its board of directors has declared a quarterly dividend of $.07 per share. The dividend is payable on Nov. 9 to all shareholders of record at the close of business on Oct. 19.
Nuclea Biotechnologies said this week that it has raised $5 million as part of a Series C financing round. The Pittsfield, Mass.-based firm, which is developing biomarker-based diagnostics, launched the financing round earlier this year with the goal of raising $10 million. A spokesperson said the firm would commence the second half of the round shortly. Nucela intends to use the funds to support regulatory efforts for its fatty acid synthase assays.
Genomics In The Journals is a weekly feature pointing readers to select, recently published articles involving genomics and related research.