Qiagen Acquires Biosystems Unit from Biotage

This acquisition will add to Qiagen's assay technology by providing high-resolution sequence detection and quantification of genetic variations. The transaction is valued at approximately US$53 million in cash and subject to certain customary purchase price adjustments.

Biosystems pioneered Pyrosequencing, a fundamental technology in next-generation sequencing. Pyrosequencing is an assay technology that can achieve significantly longer runs and it can be employed in a massively parallel design to address the needs for applications such as high volume data generation in whole genome sequencing applications. In its widely used standard format, this technology provides the opportunity to read DNA-sequences up to 100 base pairs in real time and at a price per read in the single dollar range.

Pyrosequencing offers absolute and direct quantification of methylation patterns. Assessments and quantifications of methylation, a mechanism that controls gene-expression, help to understand and predict diseases, which are associated with abnormal methylation patterns, such as cancer.

To automate the use of the Pyrosequencing technology, Biosystems developed PyroMark instrumentation, a real-time sequence detection system, which offers significant advantages over other sequence analysis technologies in short length sequence detection and quantification. This system represents a synergistic addition to the detection technologies Qiagen offers. Pyrosequencing provides high-resolution sequence detection and quantification down to reads of the level of a single base pair and thereby allows detection not only of known but also of unknown DNA sequences or mutations in targeted regions.

"With Pyrosequencing, we are adding nothing less but a proven gold standard for high-resolution sequence detection and quantification which, due to its high level of reliability, accuracy, ease-of-use, and cost-efficiency, is widely used in today's next-generation sequencing technologies. As such, Qiagen is not only gaining financial interest and technological leadership in a core next generation sequencing technology, but is also addressing significant current and future needs in our core markets for quantitative, high-resolution sequence analyses of short-medium stretches,” said Peer Schatz, CEO of Qiagen.

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