Qiagen to acquire Gentra Systems for $38 million in cash

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, May 4 - Qiagen NV said Thursday it has agreed to buy all outstanding shares of Gentra Systems Inc., a privately held developer, manufacturer and supplier of non-solid phase nucleic acid purification products, providing both consumables and automated platforms.

The acquisition expands Qiagen's position as a leading provider of preanalytical and molecular diagnostics solutions to research and diagnostic customers, according to a company news release.

The transaction is subject to approval by Gentra's shareholders and is expected to close at the end of the second quarter, officials said.

Under the agreement, Qiagen said it will acquire 100% of the outstanding shares of Gentra for about $38 million in cash.

Qiagen said it expects to incur one-time charges of about $0.02 in earnings per share at closing.

Based on preliminary analyses and depending on the date of the closing, Qiagen said it expects this transaction to contribute about $6 million in sales in the second half of 2006.

On an adjusted basis without one-time charges, integration and restructuring costs and amortization of acquired intellectual property, the acquisition is expected to be neutral to earnings per share in 2006 and to be accretive by at least $0.01 in 2007, officials said.

Gentra is focused on the niche market of nucleic acid purification from large scale blood samples up to 10 ml.

The Gentra product line is highly synergistic with Qiagen's product portfolio and broadens the company's value proposition for customers in areas such as molecular diagnostics, biobanking and translational medicine.

DNA purified from such large scale blood samples with Gentra products is well suited for applications such as Qiagen's PCR-based genotyping, molecular testing products or comparative genomic hybridization, officials said.

In addition, many customers in biobanking and DNA archiving use Qiagen's whole genome amplification technology to replicate and thereby immortalize precious samples, officials said.

Qiagen is a Venlo, The Netherlands, holding company and provider of technologies and products for preanalytical sample preparation and molecular diagnostics solutions.

Gentra, based in Minneapolis, is a biotechnology company that specializes in developing nucleic acid purification reagents and instruments for clinical and clinical research laboratories.

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