Degussa sells Proligo Group to Sigma-Aldrich
Degussa, of Dusseldorf in Germany, has agreed to sell the US-based Proligo Group to the life-science company Sigma-Aldrich Corporation of St Louis, Missouri, for an undisclosed purchase price.
Degussa, of Dusseldorf in Germany, has agreed to sell the US-based Proligo Group to the life-science company Sigma-Aldrich Corporation of St Louis, Missouri, for an undisclosed purchase price.
Completion of the transaction remains subject to the approval of the German Federal Anti-Trust Office (Bundeskartellamt).
Proligo, which operates in the field of nucleic acids and oligonucleotide synthesis, employs around 300 staff worldwide and had annual sales of €30.9m in 2004. Its headquarters are in Boulder, Colorado, but it also has manufacturing sites in Hamburg, Paris, Singapore, Kyoto and Lismore in Australia.
According to Degussa, Proligo ranks only sixth in the oligonucleotides market and does not have the opportunities to achieve a leading position through its own resources. Moreover, this market is expected to face heavy consolidation. As a result, it has been evaluating strategic options for Proligo over the past few months.
The new ownership structure provides good opportunities for Proligo's development, Degussa believes. Sigma-Aldrich is one of the world's leading life-science and high-tech companies, and is seeking to substantially expand its activities in the nucleic acid market. Proligo is to play a significant role in this endeavour.
'The acquisition of Proligo is another key step in our strategy to provide tools that fully meet the research needs of scientists in the rapidly growing field of genomics,' said David Harvey, Sigma-Aldrich's chairman and ceo. 'Proligo will provide us with one of only four exclusive licenses to a key Massachusetts Institute of Technology patent application that covers the use of RNA in gene silencing.
'Adding this capability to our previously announced partnership with Ingex to develop and market their revolutionary new gene disruption technology (TargeTron), our exclusive licensing arrangement with Rubicon in whole genome amplification (GenomePlex) and our own internal r&d activities enhances our position in the rapidly growing functional genomics market.
'We expect this investment to permit us to participate as a global leader in the genomics and gene silencing research tools markets for years to come.'