Millipore Corporation announced on February 2 that they have entered into an agreement to acquire Guava Technologies, a provider of bench top cell analysis systems. The buyout occurred just under a year after the two companies put together a distribution and co-development partnership between themselves, so this buyout was not a big surprise to many.
Millipore will pay $22.6 million, subject to various adjustments to acquire Guava. Guavas sales during FY 2008 were in the $22 million range. Because of the relatively small size of Guava as compared to Millipore, we would not expect any significant affect on Millipore earnings in the short run, either for the better or the worse. In the longer run, this could be a profitable move for Millipore. The deal will most likely be closed by the end of February if not sooner. (more…)
Two Roche Applied Science companies, NimbleGen and 454 Life Sciences have developed new technologies to resequence all human exons from individual genomes. This new discovery will help science take a giant step towards personalized medicine and other discoveries. Because of this, researchers will now be able to see the genetic variations within the exome of any human being.
In essence, what this means is that in the not too distant future, researchers will be able to discover the functional variations that are responsible for a host of diseases ranging from cancer and Alzheimers disease to Huntington’s Disease and Cystic Fibrosis.
NimbleGen’s contribution was their launching of the Sequence Capture 2.1M Human Exome Microarrays, built on the HD2 platform, that allows researchers to capture all exons in the genome.
The contribution by 454 Life Sciences consisted of their Genome Sequencer FLX System.
With the two products now combined, researchers can now assess genetic variations in the exome of any human being. As the 454 Life Sciences press release states, “Human exome sequencing is considered by many researchers to be the ‘Holy Grail’ for resequencing that will lead to significant biomedical breakthroughs.”
We recently wrote an article on the upcoming Clinical Trial for Geron Corps stem cell therapy for spinal injury, which will probably catch the public eye in the not too distant future. That trial is indeed potentially going to be a gigantic step forward, and will deserve the public accolades it will get. But the NimbleGen/454 Life Sciences project will most likely be almost as important, but will probably end up toiling more quietly in the background, understood only by the scientists and researchers who are using it.
Our hats off to the geniuses who created it.
Take that, ABI!
Waters/Micromass is a long-term client of mine, so I’m always happy to publicize their products. Rather than try to write up an article on this new Q-ToF I’ll just copy and paste their press release here. I would be shocked if they decided to sue me. Go ahead and buy a couple of their new Q-ToF’s so they will start hiring from me again.
Waters Introduces the Xevo QTof Mass Spec and Once Again Redefines Mass Spectromtery.
Industry’s Most Sensitive Benchtop QTof Mass Spectrometry System Accelerates Today’s Laboratory Workflow with Unrivaled Performance and Simplicity.
For Immediate Release Milford, MA–January 12, 2009
Waters Corp today introduced its Waters Xevo quadrupole time-of-flight (QToF) mass spectrometer, an exact mass MS/MS benchtop instrument that is the most sensitive benchtop QToF system ever. Aimed at transforming every stage of the analytical laboratory workflow, Xevo mass spectrometers are designed around the philosophy of Engineered Simplicity which combines outstanding instrument performance with simplicity of operation to enable scientists to convert data into business-critical knowledge faster and with greater assurance.
“Businesses and independent labs demand that mass spectrometry obtain clear answers to complex problems and that instruments can be operated by a wide range of scientists,” said Brian Smith, Vice President, Mass Spectrometry Operations for the Waters Division. “Whilst the Xevo QToF offers an unparalleled combination of performance characateristics, it is the simplicity engineered into the Xevo QToF that challenges the notion that exact mass MS/MS has to be complex to deliver meaningful results.
Paired with Waters ACQUITY UltraPerformance Liquid Chromatography (UPLC), the Xevo QToF MS is the only commercially available MS system to give scientists one-of-a-kind UPLC/MS performance–a novel, patented method of data acquisition that captures “all of the data all of the time” at unparalleled speeds to maximize the amount of information collected from minimal sample amounts. (more…)
First the bad news. Varian has announced they are going to eliminate 240 full time and 80 temporary positions and close certain facilities. They have also initiated a salary freeze and restrictions on hiring and spending. (Hopefully the salary freezes also apply to executive salaries and bonuses as well as the little guy) The actions will cost Varian between $8.5 million and $10.5 million in the short term, but will result in operating expense reduction of $20-24 million per year once fully implemented.
In the following press release they go into financial details to explain the need for the cost reductions. To oversimplify what is said below it sounds as though sales were lower than expected in Q1 due to lower revenues from Research Products, especially NMR and imaging systems. It also sounds as though revenues were not bad in October and November, but there was a bigger drop in December which worried management. They blame this drop on weakness in orders in December due to deteriorating global economic conditions as well as customer shutdowns and the shorter working month. (more…)
As a life science recruiter with well over 20 years experience, I have the luxury of picking and choosing my clients now. That wasn’t true when I was a rookie back in 1985. Nowadays I look at how a company is doing and how I expect it to perform in the future before I decide whether to recruit for them or not. I’ve found it is much easier to get someone to go to a well performing company from an underperforming one than vice versa.
When I think of Affymetrix I normally think of a company that was once a leader in their industry for many years that has slowly been outmaneuvered by its newer, smaller and more nimble competitors. I hadn’t really seen them do anything really exciting in a long time. So when I heard that Kevin King, the CEO of Affymetrix was going to give a presentation at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, I didn’t expect much. I was pleasantly surprised. He had a lot to say, so I will condense it as much as possible.
He started out doing pretty much what every company before had done–said how Affymetrix is a recognized leader in genetic analysis, they have good brand recognition, a big customer base and many thousands of publications involving their products. The usual fluff every CEO says at these meetings.
But it didn’t take long for Kevin to make things more interesting. He started talking about the strategies they had implemented in 2008 to get their sales and profits moving again. He mentioned re-engineering their various technology platforms, entering new high growth markets and creating greater operating leverage, which I interpreted to be cost reductions.
On the re-engineering side of things he gave several examples of products that had been modified and improved. For example, he claims that on the GeneTitan they have been able to reduce operator hands-on time from 7 hours per day to 30 minutes. If that is true, that is a huge improvment. My hats off to the scientists and engineers who accomplished that feat.
Next he spoke about how they are moving into new high growth markets. He talked about how the USB and Panomics acquisitions fit into that picture. He went into detail on how the Panomics buyout would end up simplifying assay workflow and is more accurate than RT-PCR. I had actually panned the Panomics buyout on this blog a couple months ago, but now that I understand the reasons behind it, it makes sense.
Then he went on to Operating Leverage. As I had expected, a good bit of it was about cost reductions, which in some cases unfortunately means layoffs. A manufacturing consolidation resulted in increasing yields by 30% which is impressive. He says the operating changes should improve margins by 4 to 6%. Consolidating three manufacturing sites into one will have a savings of $20 to $25 million per year. Unfortunately, from my perspective, I always hate consolidations like that because of the human factor, but the CEO has to take a longer term view than I do.
He next went into a lot of detail on future products and markets. I won’t go into everything he said, but he gave the example of high throughput biomarker screening, specifically the QuantiGene Plex assay as an answer for high throughput multiplex gene expression. Way over my head. But he claims that Novartis will screen up to 25,000 compounds per day using that assay.
At the end he summarized all of the above. Overall, a very good presentation.
What I took away from all this is that Affymetrix management realizes they are in a horse race with some very good competitors and they needed a multi-pronged program to get things moving again. I don’t think we have seen the last of acquisitions from Affy and I am also expecting the cost reductions and new product introductions will continue throughout 2009.
So did he hit a home run? I’m not sure yet–only time will tell, but no doubt it was a hit of some kind–at least a double or triple.
As a financial and professional disclosure, I was not paid to write this article and Affymetrix is not currently a client of mine.
Rather than write my own article on this, I will just copy Illumina’s announcement here.
SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) announced today that it has introduced the Illumina CSProTM Program for Sequencing. This new extension to the program allows organizations with the Illumina Genome Analyzer to become certified in order to provide a range of sequencing-based genetic analysis services. The Illumina CSPro Program is the only program of its kind to offer a collaborative partnership that includes co-marketing benefits with a certification process designed to help ensure delivery of the highest data quality available for genetic analysis applications. Illumina has established high performance standards and CSPro certifications for each of the Company’s array-based assay technologies including GoldenGate® Genotyping, Infinium® Whole-Genome Genotyping, and Whole-Genome Expression. The Illumina CSPro Program is modular so that participants can elect to be certified for any or all of the assays or platforms.
Illumina worked closely with the National Center for Genome Resources (NCGR) in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Fasteris SA in Geneva, Switzerland, to validate processes for the CSPro Sequencing Program. Thanks to their collaborative efforts, both organizations have completed the certification and assisted in the development of the rigorous standards for the certification, annual audit, and best practices guidelines that will enable other providers to achieve the same quality standards. (more…)
I was perusing the Millipore website today and noticed that Millipore and Guava Technologies are going to award a Flow Cytometer to someone who is doing cell biology research. At an average price of $100,000 per unit, these items don’t come cheap.
They will give the Flow Cytometer to the scientist whose most innovative research proposal will advance the understanding of cell biology. They announced the award during the American Society of Cell Biology meeting in San Francisco.
Applications for the award can be accessed from either the Millipore or Guava websites from January 1 until April 30, 2009. The panel will select 5 finalists, and each of the finalists will be contacted for an in-depth discussion of their proposal. The instrument will be awarded in May of 2009 to the winner.
Affymetrix announced today that they have completed their buyout of Panomics, a privately held Fremont, California based company.
Affymetrix will be paying $73 million in cash in order to acquire Panomics.
To read the full Affymetrix news release, go to http://investor.affymetrix.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=116408&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1233403&highlight=
Helicos Biosciences is a Cambridge, Massachusetts based company that makes equipment to read DNA at high speeds.
I saw an article in the Boston Globe today that announced this 30% layoff. So I went to the Helicos website and checked out the press releases, and there was absolutely nothing about the layoff in their press releases.
There was a release there that says that Ronald Lowy has been appointed CEO. And the Q3 results, ending Septemeber 30 were there as well. Either the Globe has heard something that has not been put onto the Helicos website yet, or they are just way off base.
According to the Helicos Q3 report, they did have an increase in net loss for the quarter of $11.45 million in 2008 while for Q3 2007 the net loss was $9.96 million.
It’ll be interesting to see if Helicos does announce a layoff this week. If so, that’s the companies way of saying Merry Xmas to their employees. Let’s hope the Globe is wrong on this one.
Arnel is a New Jersey based firm that focuses on “custom engineered solutions for Gas Chromatography applications. GC is used in petrochemical, food, beverage, industrial hygene and forensics, as well as in a limited number of life science applications.
To read the PerkinElmer press release, go to http://www.perkinelmer.com/CorpPressRoom.htm?id=NewsReleases
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