Millipore To Acquire Guava Technologies

Millipore Corp. has entered into an agreement to acquire Guava Technologies, a provider of benchtop cell analysis systems, for $22.6 million. The two companies have been engaged in a distribution and co-development partnership since March 2008.

“The acquisition of Guava represents another step forward in the transformation of our Bioscience Division,” said Martin Madaus, chairman and chief executive officer of Millipore. “Over the past three years, Millipore has become a life science leader with the product breadth and expertise to create platform solutions that enable our customers to work more efficiently. With the Guava acquisition, we will bring the power of our flow cytometry platform to all cell biologists by combining Guava’s instruments with our broad range of fully-validated reagent kits.”

Flow cytometry is a research technique used by scientists to measure changes in protein expression in individual cells. These experiments are usually conducted in centralized, or core, laboratories. Millipore and Guava are integrating instrumentation, reagent kits, validated protocols, and technical support to bring the advantages of flow cytometry to the bench tops of cell biologists. Guava’s technology may also be used to develop new products for the process monitoring tools segment of Millipore’s Bioprocess Division. The company expects to maintain Guava’s manufacturing and commercial operations in Hayward, CA. The transaction is expected to close in the next two weeks.

“Our vision is to make flow cytometry less expensive, easier to use, and more accessible for all research scientists,” said Jonathan DiVincenzo, president of Millipore’s Bioscience Division. “Additionally, by developing kits that are optimized for key research areas such as stem cell research, cancer biology, cell health, and biomarker discovery, scientists will no longer need to source reagents and develop their own assays. We exceeded our targets for placing Guava instruments in 2008 and we are excited about further increasing the adoption of our flow cytometry platform by accelerating our investments in R&D, sales and marketing.”