September 10, 2015
By Alex Keown, BioSpace.com Breaking News Staff
SANTA CLARA, Calif.—Pharma diagnostics company Agilent Technologies, Inc. inked a $235 million deal to acquire privately-held Seahorse Bioscience to complement its mass spectrometry solutions and expand pharma offerings, the company announced this morning.
Agilent said Seahorse’s technology enables researchers to “better understand cell health, function and signaling, and how the cell may be impacted by the introduction of a specific drug, by providing real-time kinetics to unlock essential cellular bioenergetics data.” Exploration into cell metabolism is rapidly accelerating as the links between mitochondrial function and disease are increasingly revealed, Agilent said in a statement.
The company did not say if the acquisition would result in any necessary relocation of Seahorse employees. Founded in 2001, Seahorse is located in Billerica, Mass. The company has offices in Copenhagen, Denmark, and Shanghai, China. The Seahorse Bioscience employs approximately 200 people, most of whom are expected to join Agilent, the company said.
Patrick Kaltenbach, president of Agilent’s Life Sciences and Applied Markets Group, said Seahorse’s XF technology used to research the role of cellular metabolism, is a “perfect compliment” to Agilent’s “mass spectrometry solutions, in particular for metabolomics research and disease research in pharma.”
The combination of these two platforms gives scientists a more comprehensive and faster path to researching the most challenging diseases affecting mankind. Seahorse’s team and technology are an ideal fit for Agilent and for our customers, and we look forward to bringing them on board,” Kaltenbach said in a statement.
Seahorse said its XF technology has a wide-use in researching multiple metabolic issues including neurodegeneration, aging, cancer, cardiovascular disease, cell physiology, toxicology and hepatobiology, immunology, infectious diseases, mitochondrial diseases, model organisms, obesity, diabetes, metabolic disorders, screening and translational medicine.
Jay Teich, chief executive of Seahorse, said joining Agilent will provide a new marketing outlet for Seahorse’s cell-based tools.
“And when these two technology-rich companies combine, we expect to offer a series of new products and applications that will benefit our customers,” Teich said in a statement.
Under terms of the deal, Agilent will offer an upfront cash payment of $235 million. Seahorse is expected to bring in $49 million in revenue for the 2015 fiscal year. The deal is expected to close by Nov. 1, the company said. Agilent posted revenue of $4 billion in 2014.
In June Agilent, in cooperation with Ghent University, announced updates to its SurePrint gene expression microarrays for messenger RNA profiling applications for human, mouse and rat models. Agilent’s genomic workflow includes the 2100 Bioanalyzer and 2200 Tapestation for quality control, SureScan scanner for data acquisition, GeneSpring software for data analysis, and the AriaMX system for real-time polymerase chain reactions.
