Santa Clara, CA 4/3/18—Agilent Technologies, a provider of solutions for the life sciences, diagnostics and applied chemical markets, has acquired the remaining 52% of NGS firm Lasergen that it did not own, for $105 million. Agilent announced its initial investment in 2016 (see IBO 3/15/16). “Building a next generation sequencing workflow for clinical applications is a critical component to Agilent’s diagnostics strategy to fight cancer and constitutional diseases,” stated Jacob Thaysen, president of Agilent’s Diagnostics and Genomics Group. “We are focused on delivering patient-centric, actionable information for clinical decisions. Ensuring an integrated customer experience across all of our diagnostic modalities is essential and will become a key differentiator going forward.” Based in Houston, Texas, Lasergen has 45 employees.

This would add NGS technology to Agilent’s list of diagnostic techniques offerings, which currently include CGH, FISH/CISH, IHC and PCR. Agilent announced at the time of its initial investment the option to acquire the remainder of Lasergen for $105 million. In total, Agilent paid $185 million for Lasergen. The companies are working together by integrating Lasergen’s Lightning Terminators chemistry with Agilent’s expertise in instrumentation and NGS workflows.