Here, Bounce, come Bounce, heel!
Meanwhile, I think this deal is sensible for both parties:
>>SAN DIEGO and CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/-- Invitrogen Corporation (Nasdaq: IVGN - News) and Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Nasdaq: VRTX - News) today jointly announced the completion of the sale of products and technology rights of Vertex's PanVera LLC to Invitrogen for approximately $95 million in cash. PanVera LLC has been a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vertex.
Based in Madison, Wisconsin, PanVera provides products and services that are designed to accelerate the discovery of new medicines by the pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical industries. Through the transaction, Invitrogen is acquiring PanVera's leading-edge biochemical and cellular assay capabilities and its commercial portfolio of proprietary reagents, probes and proteins. Certain of these technologies were developed by the former Aurora Biosciences Corporation, which was acquired by Vertex in 2001. As part of the transaction, Invitrogen is also acquiring PanVera's new R&D and manufacturing facility in Madison, which is staffed by more than 100 PanVera employees. Invitrogen plans to expand the sale of PanVera products to target a broader market, including academic and government researchers.
"The completion of this transaction brings Invitrogen a broad array of complementary product offerings for the determination of protein function, labeling and detection of biological molecules, and custom and pre-packaged biochemical and cell-based assays," said James Glynn, President and CEO of Invitrogen. "We believe this transaction will offer distinct benefits to our customers, as we will be able to better serve their evolving research and drug discovery needs."
"The cash value captured in this transaction will provide strong financial support for Vertex's pursuit of its core objectives: to discover, develop, and commercialize pharmaceutical products directed at areas of high unmet medical need," said Joshua Boger, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of Vertex.
Vertex Pharmaceuticals acquired the PanVera Corporation as part of the Company's acquisition of Aurora Biosciences in July 2001. PanVera LLC is a successor in interest to PanVera Corporation. Through the Aurora acquisition, Vertex was able to integrate a variety of proprietary assay and screening technologies and expertise into its discovery platform, and was also able to create a discovery site in San Diego dedicated to new broad-based drug discovery initiatives. In particular, drug discovery programs directed at two target classes, ion channels and GPCRs, have been initiated at this site. The San Diego site continues to contribute innovative technologies to Vertex's worldwide discovery initiatives as it leads the Company's membrane-protein discovery programs.<<
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Cheers, Tuck |
