Millipore Corp. will acquire Serologicals Corp. in a $1.4 billion, all-cash transaction. The combined organization of approximately 5,800 employees will have significantly expanded R&D capabilities and a worldwide sales, sales support, and service organization of approximately 1,200 professionals selling a broad portfolio of complementary products.

In a statement, Millipore contended that the strategic combination of the companies will significantly strengthen Millipore’s Bioscience Division by giving it leading positions in a broad range of high growth segments such as drug discovery products and services, antibodies, cell biology reagents, and stem cell research. The company expects to increase sales of Serologicals’ products in international markets such as Europe, Asia and Japan, where Millipore has a significant presence. Millipore’s Bioprocess Division will gain a cell culture supplements offering that will facilitate its entry into the $1 billion upstream bioprocessing market. As a result, the company stated, Millipore will be the only business in the life science industry that can offer both upstream cell culture and downstream separation offerings for biopharmaceutical production.  

Martin Madaus, chairman, president, and chief executive officer of Millipore, said, “Our acquisition of Serologicals is transformational.  This move will significantly increase our life sciences footprint and will advance many of our strategic objectives. Serologicals and Millipore are two of the fastest growing companies in our sector, and our combination will create a company with very attractive growth and profitability. Serologicals participates in a number of high-growth market segments and brings a portfolio of innovative, higher margin products that can be sold through our combined, global sales organization.  With the addition of Serologicals’ R&D capabilities, we will also be able to pursue new markets and bring together the applications expertise of both companies to generate value for customers.”  

The transaction, which is expected to close on or about June 30, 2006 and was approved by both companies’ boards, is subject to Serologicals shareholder approval, customary regulatory approvals, and other conditions in the merger agreement.