Illumina and Applera Agree to Settle All Disputes
Thursday August 19, 4:15 pm ET
SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 19, 2004--Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN - News) today announced that it has agreed to settle all existing litigation with Applera Corporation and its Applied Biosystems Group ("Applera").
The settlement encompasses two lawsuits related to a joint development agreement between the companies entered into in November 1999. Key components of the settlement include an exchange of royalty-free cross-licenses to certain intellectual property rights, express termination of the joint development agreement, dismissal of a patent infringement action brought by Applera in the Northern District of California federal court, termination of an arbitration proceeding, and dismissal of Illumina's remaining claim in an action brought by Illumina against Applera in San Diego Superior Court.
As a component of the November 1999 joint development agreement, Applera provided Illumina $10.0 million in R&D funding that was repayable to Applera from the profits of anticipated collaboration products. As a result of the settlement, Illumina will remove the $10.0 million liability from its balance sheet, make a one-time payment of $8.5 million to Applera and record a gain of $1.5 million.
Illumina (www.illumina.com) is developing next-generation tools that permit large-scale analysis of genetic variation and function. The Company's proprietary BeadArray(TM) technology -- now used in leading genomics centers around the world -- provides the throughput, cost effectiveness and flexibility to enable researchers in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries to perform the billions of tests necessary to extract medically valuable information from advances in genomics and proteomics. This information will correlate genetic variation and gene function with particular disease states, enhancing drug discovery, allowing diseases to be detected earlier and more specifically, and permitting better choices of drugs for individual patients. |
