CeGaT, the Center for Genomics and Transcriptomics, said this week that healthcare product and service provider B. Braun Melsungen has taken a 20 percent stake in the firm.
The investment will allow CeGaT, based in Tübingen, Germany, to further expand its range of diagnostic panels and to distribute them internationally. CeGaT did not reveal the size of the investment.
According to its website, CeGaT currently offers 55 sequencing-based diagnostic panels for a range of genetic diseases, including ALS, FTD, dementia, Parkinson's disease, dystonia, neurokanthocytosis, epilepsy and metabolic disorders, hereditary eye diseases, neuromuscular diseases, and hereditary hearing loss (IS 10/26/2010).
The company, founded in 2009, is equipped with SOLiD 5500xl and SOLiD 4 instruments, an Ion Torrent PGM, and a capillary sequencer.
This is B. Braun's first entry into the genetic diagnostic market. "With CeGaT, we are taking a stake in a young, dynamic company that is perfectly aligned for the diagnostics market, one of the large growth markets of the future," said Heinz-Walter Große, chairman of B. Braun's board, in a statement.
B. Braun, based in Melsungen, Germany, provides products and services for anesthesia, intensive medicine, cardiology, extracorporeal blood treatment, and surgery. The company has more than 43,000 employees in more than 50 countries and reported €4.4 billion ($5.8 billion) in revenues in 2010.