Molecular Devices announced in April 2006 that it had acquired the laser capture microdissection (LCM) related business of Arcturus Bioscience for $10 million in cash
This strategic acquisition expands Molecular Devices's life sciences product portfolio to include complete systems and reagents for LCM, which is an important sample preparation technology for genomic and protein analysis.
The combination of LCM products with Molecular Devices current detection offerings, such as GenePix, broadens Molecular Devices's life sciences product portfolio and creates complete microgenomics platforms.
Arcturus, founded in 1996, was a pioneer in the field of LCM.
The market leading Arcturus LCM platform allows researchers to visualise and selectively excise individual cells or collections of cells from heterogeneous tissue.
The selective capture of specific cells through LCM allows researchers to quickly and accurately utilize the smallest and purest cellular samples for further RNA, DNA or protein analysis.
The LCM platform includes reagents for preparing the samples for microdissection, instrumentation and consumables for visualization and excision and additional reagents for post-capture processing.
Arcturus is the market leader in LCM with over 1,000 systems installed worldwide.
Commenting on the transaction, Joseph Keegan, president and chief executive officer of Molecular Devices, said: "This strategic acquisition allows us to continue to expand our life sciences portfolio by adding additional enabling tools for cellular analysis.
"We believe that offering LCM systems with our existing genomics and cellular imaging products is a natural fit for our life sciences research customers as LCM is typically an upstream step for genomic or imaging analysis.
"We also believe that we can improve the distribution of the LCM platform by leveraging our worldwide distribution infrastructure".
Under the terms of the transaction, Molecular Devices paid $10 million for the LCM-related assets of Arcturus Bioscience and hired 42 former Arcturus employees that were associated with the LCM business.
All of the LCM operations and employees will immediately move to Molecular Devices headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA.
Molecular Devices did not obtain any Arcturus facilities in connection with this transaction.
For the remaining nine months of 2006, Molecular Devices anticipates that this acquisition will increase revenues by $8 to $10 million and increase fully diluted EPS by $0.03 to $0.05.
We expect to provide further details on guidance in the company's first quarter earnings release and conference call.
