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Invitrogen Acquires Quantum Dot and BioPixels®
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Invitrogen Corporation has announced the acquisitions of Quantum Dot Corporation and the BioPixels® business unit of BioCrystal, Ltd. and the early closing of the Biosource International, Inc. acquisition.
The acquisition of Quantum Dots and BioPixels® bolster Invitrogen's Molecular Probes business as the leader in advanced labeling and detection technologies.
Invitrogen also announced an agreement with Georgia Tech Research Corporation to exclusively license “nanocluster” technology.
Taken together, the combination of these acquisitions and licenses will enable Invitrogen to create products that enable life science researchers to better visualize and understand cellular processes, molecular interactions, and other factors essential to diagnosing and treating disease.
“Invitrogen's Molecular Probes business is the market leader in organic chemistry-based labeling and detection technologies,” said Augie Sick, General Manager of Molecular Probes.
“These acquisitions, when combined with the license from Georgia Tech, provide Invitrogen with a significant intellectual property position and robust platform for product development based on advanced inorganic materials science for molecular detection.”
“Moreover, by adding several exciting new products, including widely known Quantum Dot Corporation's Qdots® particles to our product portfolio, we remain well positioned for continued strong growth.”
“Molecular labeling and detection technologies are a cornerstone of Invitrogen's business and represent one of the fastest growing segments in life sciences,” explained Gregory T. Lucier, Chairman and CEO of Invitrogen Corporation.
“The ability to illuminate biological processes taking place, such as whether a defect in the function of a heart cell is causing a patient's heart disease, is becoming a preferred method for molecular research and diagnostic applications.”
“By adding advanced nanotechnology capabilities to our existing labeling and detection franchise, Invitrogen has positioned itself at the cutting edge of this exciting field, providing innovative solutions for use by our customers and in our own research and development of novel technologies in proteomics, genomics, gene expression, and imaging.”
The agreement with Georgia Tech Research Corporation provides an exclusive license to metal nanocluster technology.
These metal nanoclusters, developed by Robert Dickson and Jie Zhang at Georgia Institute of Technology, are extremely small and extremely bright fluorescent particles, comprising only a few gold or silver atoms, exhibiting physical and optical properties that make them particularly well suited for in vivo as well as in vitro applications.
The advantage of these nanoclusters is that they are photostable and offer up to ten times the fluorescence of semi-conductor nanocrystals, permitting true single molecule detection and representing another approach to the next-generation of high sensitivity labeling and detection applications.
Separately, Invitrogen also announced that it has completed its acquisition of Biosource International, Inc.
This deal augments Invitrogen's growing collection of protein and primary antibody products gained through its acquisitions of Zymed Laboratories and Caltag Laboratories earlier this year.
Additionally, Biosource bolsters Invitrogen's offerings in both kinase and cytokine assay technologies for research applications and provides the company an opportunity to enter new markets in immunology, oncology and neurodegenerative disease.
The financial impact of the acquisition of Quantum Dot and BioPixels®, as well as the early closing of BioSource International, Inc., will be discussed on the Company's third quarter earnings call on October 27, 2005.
