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Two leading medical diagnostics companies are in talks to merge, a potential deal that would be worth more than $10B and underscore the continued strength of the life sciences sector.
The merger between Qiagen, a Netherlands-based multinational focused on isolating and processing DNA and RNA, and California-based Bio-Rad, which makes products for life sciences research and clinical diagnostics, would be a biotech blockbuster. The Wall Street Journal first reported the news Monday, citing unnamed sources.
Combined, the firms employ 14,000 people worldwide. Bio-Rad, started in Berkeley, California, in 1952, saw $2.9B in sales last year and is still mostly owned by the founding Schwartz family, which may complicate the deal.
This merger would represent the latest movement in the medical diagnostics market, which has been primed for growth by the pandemic-era demand for more testing.
Qiagen, for instance, has been working on a test for Parkinson’s disease. Last year, Illumina Inc. acquired Grail, which sells cancer-detecting blood tests, for $7B. In 2020, Thermo Fisher tried to acquire Qiagen for roughly $13B, but the offer was rejected by Qiagen shareholders, many of whom felt at the time that Covid and the need for testing would boost the company’s fortunes.
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