Sigma-Aldrich buys Degussa nucleic acid business
Sigma-Aldrich for an undisclosed purchase price, on the grounds
that it does not have the resources in-house to grow Proligo from
its current sixth place ranking in the sector.
Proligo, which specialises in nucleic acid and oligonucleotide synthesis, employs around 300 staff worldwide and had annual sales of €30.9m in 2004. Its headquarters are in Boulder, Colorado, but it also has manufacturing sites in Hamburg, Paris, Singapore, Kyoto and Lismore in Australia.
Degussa said that its decision was also based on the fact that the nucleic acid sector is expected to face heavy consolidation. It has been evaluating strategic options for Proligo over the past few months.
For its part, Sigma-Aldrich has been actively trying to expand its activities in the nucleic acid market, and it said Proligo would play a significant role in this endeavour. The company had previously announced a partnership with Ingex to develop and market their revolutionary new gene disruption technology called TargeTron, and has an exclusive licensing arrangement with Rubicon in whole genome amplification (GenomePlex).
"The acquisition of Proligo is another key step in our strategy to provide tools that fully meet the research needs of scientists in the rapidly growing field of genomics," said David Harvey, Sigma-Aldrich's chairman and CEO.
He added that Proligo will provide Sigma-Aldrich with one of only four exclusive licenses to a key Massachusetts Institute of Technology patent application that covers the use of RNA in gene silencing.
Depending on the transaction's closing date -- which is expected early in the second quarter - up to nine months of operating results from Proligo will be added to Sigma-Aldrich's books in 2005. This is forecast to increase overall sales growth by roughly 2 per cent. Sigma-Aldrich had sales of $1.41 billion in 2004.
Completion of the transaction remains subject to the approval of the German antitrust authorities.
