Bio Saga Blog - A Chronicle of Life Sciences & Informatics

Merck KGaA today announced that it will acquire Sigma-Aldrich for $17 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Merck will acquire all outstanding shares of Sigma-Aldrich for $140 per share, which would represent a 37 percent premium to Sigma-Aldrich's closing stock price of $102.37 on Sept. 19. The deal is anticipated to be immediately accretive to Merck's EPS pre and EBITDA margin, the companies said, and Merck anticipates achieving annual synergies of about €260 million ($334 million) within three years after the completion of the acquisition. In a statement, Merck KGaA Chairman Karl-Ludwig Kley called the deal a "quantum leap" for the company's life science business, whose contributions to the German firm's overall earnings would more than double with the addition of Sigma-Aldrich. "In one of the world's key industries two companies that fit perfectly together have found each other to present a much broader product offering to our global cus...

Roche said today that it will acquire Genia Technologies for $125 million in cash and up to $225 million in additional payments tied to milestones. Once the deal closes, Genia will be integrated into the Roche Sequencing Unit. Genia, based in Mountain View, Calif., has been developing a single-molecule sequencing-by-synthesis technology that uses nanopore-based electrical detection and employs a semiconductor integrated circuit. Last fall, Genia and its academic collaborators at Columbia University, Harvard University, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology published proof of concept for their NanoTag sequencing technology. According to Roche, Genia's technology "is expected to reduce the price of sequencing while increasing speed and sensitivity." Roche has also been working with Pacific Biosciences on developing a sequencing system and assays for clinical diagnostics using PacBio's single-molecule real-time sequencing technology. Last fall,...

Nuclea Biotechnologies and Thermo Fisher Scientific said today that they are collaborating on multiplexed mass spec assays for quantifying native insulin and its therapeutic analogs. Nuclea plans to use the assays to analyze patient samples as part of the company's diabetes research collaborations. The assays will be developed at Thermo Fisher's Biomarker Research Initiatives in Mass Spectrometry (BRIMS) Center and will be run using Thermo Fisher's MSIA immunoenrichment technology and its TSQ Vantage or Quantiva mass spec instruments. "We’ve already worked with the BRIMS Center to develop two other very important assays," Nuclea CEO Patrick Muraca said in a statement. "These assays have demonstrated the sensitivity, precision, and robustness needed for high-throughput detection of clinically relevant isoforms of target proteins." "The real-world application of multiplexed MS-based methods to type 2 diabetes presents an opportunity to advance ...

Qiagen has purchased the assets of Biobase, a Wolfenbüttel, Germany-based provider of curated biological databases, for an undisclosed sum. Qiagen said that Biobase will be renamed Qiagen Wolfenbüttel. Also, Michael Tysiak, BioBase's CEO, will join Qiagen as general manager of the newly purchased company. Founded in 2007, Biobase provides access to curated data assembled by subject matter experts and organized in an accessible and easy to search manner. Its databases support projects focused on functional and gene regulation analyses, variant annotation, pharmacogenetics-based analysis, and more. Among its repositories are the Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD), which offers access to information on inherited disease mutations; GenomeTrac, which contains data on pathogenic variants; the PharmacoGenomic Mutation Database, which serves as a resource for locating variants that affect drug response; and the Transcription Factor Binding Sites database, which contains information o...

The National Center for Biotechnology Information  is asking for the bioinformatics community's input on a  proposed Blast XML specification update planned for release in the summer of 2014. The update, according to the development team, is intended to improve the consistency of the Blast output with XML standards as well as put in place new and useful elements. Blast XML users can submit their feedback at  this link .

SAP has unveiled an early version of a new standalone application based on its SAP Hana in-memory database technology called Medical Insights that integrates and analyzes clinical and genomic data to help oncologists make better treatment decisions for patients. In addition, SAP has announced a partnership with Canadian firm PHEMI Health Systems to build a solution that would make it possible to provide more personalized treatments for HIV patients. SAP disclosed the development of both products at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society conference held this week in Orlando. It is hoping to secure additional early adopters for the newly minted Medical Insights software which it plans to bring to market later this year. The company is still mulling pricing details. Participants in the company's early access program will have the chance to test and give feedback on a solution that leverages the Hana infrastructure to extract, integrate, and query both structu...

In continuation to BioSaga's pursuit to cover the PerkinElmer's Layoff Saga The Layoffs Continue...  The story now is never-ending, here is the latest! PerkinElmer reduced its headcount by 74 employees in the fourth quarter of 2013, bringing the total headcount reduction during the year to 430, it disclosed in its Form 10K filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday. During the fourth quarter, the company approved a restructuring plan to shift certain R&D activity resources to a newly opened Center for Innovation, resulting in the 74 layoffs. All employees were notified of their termination by Dec. 29, 2013. A total of $3.9 million was recorded in severance payments related to the layoffs in Q4 2013, PerkinElmer said, adding remaining severance payments of $2.0 million for workforce reductions will be "substantially completed" by the end of Q2 2014. The company had previously disclosed it laid off 30 employees in Q3; 265 employees ...

This is really getting interesting, BioSaga is making history as we keep blogging! The  GATTACA SAGA ! is coming to an reality! The Race has just begun! today for  Olympian Genes; tomorrow may be for a pianist with pair of hands with 6 fingers each!  There is now no limt to the human imagination there could be a new profession  as GENE ARCHITECT or a GENOME SCULPTOR!  Beginning in 2015, Uzbekistan says it will incorporate genetic testing into its search for Olympic athletes, the Atlantic reports. Rustam Muhamedov from Uzbekistan's Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry's genetics laboratory notes that he and his colleagues have been studying the genes of Uzbek athletes and are working on developing a set of 50 genes to determine what sport a child is best suited for. "Developed countries throughout the world like the United States, China, and European countries are researching the human genome and have discovered genes that define a...

O ne more story in our very own GATTACA SAGA ! Patient advocacy groups Global Genes and Swan USA announced on Tuesday a program to provide whole-exome sequencing to patients with rare diseases who cannot afford such services. Beginning March 1, Global Genes and Swan USA will provide funding for the whole-exome sequencing of about 30 undiagnosed patients in order to identify the genetic bases of their ailments. Parabase Genomics and the UCLA Clinical Genomics Center were selected as the first clinical genomic sequencing providers for the pilot project. Global Genes is a rare and genetic disease patient advocacy group, and Swan USA provides support to families of children living with diseases and syndromes that have yet to be named. According to them, a genomic test costs between $3,500 and $5,000. The financing for the program was raised through a donor-directed fund launched in September, and additional funding is underway in order to expand the program to include more undia...

Agilent said today that it has signed a co-marketing agreement with Picometrics Technologies to provide combined solutions for capillary electrophoresis, laser induced fluorescence detection, and mass spectrometry for biopharmaceutical applications. The platform is intended for the research and development of complex large-molecule biopharmaceutical compounds, and is the only online CE-LIF-MS solution currently available, Agilent said. "This unique technological platform using our new-generation LIF detection will significantly increase efficiency for biotherapeutic characterization in research, development and quality control," Jean Charles Garcia, president of Picometrics, said in a statement. "We are excited to collaborate with Picometrics and provide this unique product offering to the biopharmaceutical industry — particularly those focusing on the research and development of NBEs, or new biological entities," said Michael Frank, Agilent marketing direct...