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Illumina Paying up to $90M in Cash, Stock in Epicentre Acquisition

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This story was originally published March 2.

Illumina is paying up to $90 million in cash and stock for its recent acquisition of reagent company Epicentre Biotechnologies, according to documents the firm filed recently with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to the filing, Illumina acquired Epicentre on Jan. 10 for $60 million in cash as well as $15 million in stock that is "subject to forfeiture if certain non-revenue based milestones are not met."

In addition, Illumina will pay up to $15 million in contingent considerations based on "certain revenue-based milestones" by Jan. 10, 2013.

Illumina announced the acquisition of Madison, Wis.-based Epicentre on Jan. 11 (IS 1/18/2011). A key reason for the purchase was "direct access to Epicentre's proprietary Nextera technology for next-generation sequencing library preparation, which greatly simplifies genetic analysis workflows and reduces time from sample preparation to answer," Illumina said at the time.

Last month, Illumina CEO Jay Flatley said that the company plans to develop multiple versions of the firm's Nextera library preparation kit for its MiSeq and HiSeq sequencing platforms, and to use the Nextera technology for paired-end sequencing of long DNA fragments (IS 2/15/2011).

Illumina will also sell Epicentre RNA kits for sequencing and use a number of Epicentre enzymes in other product lines.