Roche has signed a definite agreement under which Roche will acquire 100% of innovatis, a privately held company based in Bielefeld, Germany. innovatis is a leading provider of automated cell analysis solutions, especially focussing on cell counting, viability testing, and cell function analysis in research, as well as bioproduction. The purchase price for this transaction is 15 million Euros. "This acquisition is a further step in our strategy to strengthen our position as a complete solution provider in the cell analysis research market," said Dr. Jürgen Schwiezer, CEO Division Roche Diagnostics. "Innovatis' technology will complement the existing Roche cell analysis portfolio and is synergistic to the xCELLigence technology launched in 2008."
Michael Grohmann, Managing Director of the innovatis AG stated: "Roche has been one of our key customers for many years, in particular since the successful development of our cell analysis technology over 10 years ago. The innovatis technology is very well placed for future growth as part of Roche Applied Science."
Innovatis will become a fully-integrated part of Roche Applied Science, a global business area of the Diagnostic Division of Roche. The company will continue to develop and market products for cell analysis through Roche Applied Science's extensive worldwide network. The transaction is expected to be completed within the next few weeks, subject to shareholder approval and regulatory clearance.
About Roche
Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is one of the world's leading research-focused healthcare groups in the fields of pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. As the world's biggest biotech company and an innovator of products and services for the early detection, prevention, diagnosis and treatment of diseases, the Group contributes on a broad range of fronts to improving people's health and quality of life. Roche is the world leader in in-vitro diagnostics and drugs for cancer and transplantation, and is a market leader in virology. It is also active in other major therapeutic areas such as autoimmune diseases, inflammatory and metabolic disorders and diseases of the central nervous system. In 2008 sales by the Pharmaceuticals Division totaled 36.0 billion Swiss francs, and the Diagnostics Division posted sales of 9.7 billion Swiss francs. Roche has R&D agreements and strategic alliances with numerous partners, including majority ownership interests in Genentech and Chugai, and invested nearly 9 billion Swiss francs in R&D in 2008. Worldwide, the Group employs about 80,000 people. Additional information is available on the Internet at www.roche.com.
About innovatis
In the 1990s, a team of specialists from the scientific and the IT fields in Bielefeld, Germany developed the first fully automated cell counting system. This product soon afterwards revolutionized the market as it replaced manual cell counting in many laboratories in the pharmaceutical industry. The foundation stone was laid for the successful business development of innovatis AG. Today, many years later, this motto still applies to innovatis - the meaning, however, is no longer just applicable to cell counting. In the meantime, innovatis' comprehensive consulting competence counts more to customers than the original product.
For more information about innovatis, please visit the company's website at www.innovatis.com.