Invitrogen will acquire Sentigen in an all-cash transaction valued at $25.9 million. That is about $3.37 per share of Sentigen. As of June 30, 2006, Sentigen had cash and investments valued at approximately $11.7 million and debt of $0.8 million. Sentigen will become a part of Invitrogen’s Discovery Sciences Business, based in Wisconsin.
Sentigen’s Tango™ assay system and division arrested Assay Ready Cells™ will enhance Invitrogen’s assay development approaches for GPCR and other drug targets, as well as providing live cell assays, according to the companies.
“Our presence in GPCR assays was actually quite small previous to this acquisition. The majority of our effort in assay development centered around our kinase collection. Sentigen brings us added capability in GPCR assays with the Tango and division arrested cell technologies offering our drug discovery customers an easier transition between working with different target classes,” says Greg Geissman, Invitrogen spokesman.