Molecular Devices Expands Portfolio by Acquisition

Molecular Devices (Sunnyvale, CA, USA) has acquired the laser capture microdissection (LCM)-related business from Arcturus Biosciences (Mountain View, CA; USA)for US$10 million. The acquisition expands Molecular Devices' life sciences product portfolio to include complete systems and reagents for LCM, which is an important part of sample preparation technology for genomic and protein analysis.

The Arcturus LCM platform allows researchers to visualize and selectively excise individual cells or collections of cells from heterogeneous tissue. The selective capture

of specific cells enables researchers to quickly and accurately utilize small pure cellular samples for RNA, DNA, or protein analysis. The LCM platform includes reagents for preparing cells for microdissection, instrumentation, and consumables for visualization and excision, and additional agents for post-capture processing.

Under the terms of the transaction, Molecular Devices hired 42 former Arcturus employees. The LCM operations and employees will move to Molecular Devices' headquarters in Sunnyvale.

Commenting on the transaction, Dr. Joseph Keegan, president and CEO of Molecular Devices, said, This strategic acquisition allows us to continue to expand our life sciences portfolio by adding additional enabling tools for cellular analysis. We believe that offering LCM systems with our existing genomics and cellular imaging products is a natural fit for our life sciences research customers as LCM is typically an upstream step for genomic or imaging analysis. We also believe that we can improve the distribution of the LCM platform by leveraging our worldwide distribution infrastructure.


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