Becton Dickinson Acquires Clinical Flow Cytometry Firm Cytognos from Vitro S.A.

A. (Seville, Spain).

The acquisition of Cytognos, which specializes in flow cytometry solutions for blood cancer diagnosis, minimal residual disease (MRD) detection and immune monitoring research for blood diseases, accelerates BD's strategy to support chronic disease management by expanding its portfolio of blood cancer diagnostics, immune assessment tests and informatics to address patient, clinician and care provider needs to better understand the immune system, immune response and MRD. By monitoring for MRD, lab managers and physicians can detect low levels of cancer cells following treatment that alerts them if the disease is still present or if there is a signal of recurrence. This is a key element of the patient care continuum that helps clinicians and physicians recognize when cancer recurs and aids in the timely treatment of patients.

Cytognos' key products increase BD's comprehensive portfolio of diagnostic and research solutions for certain types of cancers that use flow cytometry as the primary means of discovery, diagnosis and understanding, including lymphoma, leukemia and multiple myeloma. Cytognos IVD products are CE marked and available only in Europe and other countries where regulatory approval of the products has been obtained. In addition, Cytognos provides several research assays for multiple myeloma MRD and immune monitoring, which expands BD's portfolio in this space. Cytognos also brings sophisticated informatics solutions that will further BD's leadership in the growing area of immunology and enable the company to expand its flow informatics offerings. In a world of limited resources and increasing data and settings, Cytognos technology offers a powerful, intuitive way that provides a better understanding of patient data.

With the acquisition of Cytognos, BD gains exclusive access to advanced assays licensed from the EuroFlow Consortium, a scientifically independent network in the fields of hematology and immunology with scientists and researchers from more than 20 European universities and hospitals. BD has existing license agreements with EuroFlow for multiple other assays and the addition of the Cytognos assays further strengthens BD's 12-year licensing collaboration with EuroFlow.

"As the understanding and treatment of cancer evolves and improves, the importance of monitoring post remission cancer survivors has become paramount to improve patient outcomes," said Puneet Sarin, worldwide president of BD Biosciences. "Cytognos' capabilities are complementary to those already developed by BD scientists to screen for the most common blood cancers and will enable BD to expand beyond cancer discovery and diagnosis into the monitoring phase of the patient's journey. We're building on our strong track record of identifying and executing on opportunities and then integrating those new products and businesses into our portfolio."

"Cytognos has 25 years of experience successfully designing, developing, manufacturing and commercializing innovative flow cytometry products for in vitro diagnostics and life science research use," said Fernando Martin de Lara, Cytognos CEO. "We are pleased to be joining a global health care leader with robust infrastructure and deep expertise to accelerate growth of a combined BD/Cytognos offering by expanding the reach of Cytognos' solutions."

"This major transaction with such a leading global IVD company highlights Vitro as a sophisticated niche technology player, and it will be followed with additional corporate and key technology achievements related to our molecular biology and anatomic pathology platforms," said Javier Fernandez, Vitro's CEO.

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Becton, Dickinson and Company 
Cytognos 
Vitro S.A.