Dionex to Acquire Assets of ESA Life Sciences Tools 

Dionex, a provider of liquid chromatography analysis systems, has entered into an Asset Purchase Agreement with ESA Biosciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of Magellan Biosciences, to purchase ESA Biosciences HPLC related products, HPLC clinical assays, laboratory services and assets.

This acquisition will add three category-leading HPLC detector families to the Dionex HPLC product portfolio:

• The Corona Family of Universal Charged Aerosol Detectors (CAD) is a ‘universal’ HPLC detector family targeting pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical development, manufacturing and QA/QC processes.

• The Corona CAD detectors will be sold in conjunction with Dionex’s HPLC equipment, or directly on third party HPLC systems.

• The CoulArray and Coulochem detectors are electrochemical detectors targeting neuroscience, clinical and metabolomics research applications.

“Dionex is dedicated to increasing our presence in life science applications as we see a large opportunity for future growth in this area,” said Frank Witney, President and CEO of Dionex. “We are very excited about the addition of the Life Sciences Tools Business Unit of ESA Biosciences, its product lines and services to our HPLC product portfolio. ESA Biosciences has a distinguished history of innovation, especially with its proprietary Corona ultra detector that provides UHPLC capabilities, representing the first-inclass universal UHPLC detector.”

Witney added, “ESA’s electrochemical detector family, the CoulArray multi-electrode array and the Coulochem detectors will expand our HPLC offering and help us serve our customer demands by providing a broader and stronger spectrum of sensitive and robust HPLC and UHPLC application solutions.”

“ESA stands for the highest quality products and services in specialty detection and electrochemistry, as well as superior technical and applications expertise,” said Jasmine Gruia-Gray, President of ESA Biosciences, Life Sciences Tools Business Unit.

“We see excellent synergy with Dionex from a technology perspective, as well as both of our long histories of creating novel applications solutions. Our combined strength in separation sciences and universal and UHPLC/HPLC detector innovation will provide our customers an industry standard comprehensive set of analytical solutions across a wide range of applications industries,” Gruia-Gray added.

The terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Dionex anticipates the transaction will generate additional revenue of $12–15 million and, excluding one-time charges, will be slightly accretive in fiscal 2010. The transaction is expected to close by the end of September.