Tokyo, Japan 5/31/17; Skokie, IL 5/31/17—Sysmex, a publicly held, Japan-based provider of clinical laboratory systems and solutions, has agreed to acquire Oxford Gene Technologies (OGT) for an undisclosed amount. OGT will become a wholly owned subsidiary. OGT supplies the Cytocell FISH probes, CytoSure microarray products and SureSeq NGS reagents. In fiscal 2016 (ending September 30, 2016), OGT generated revenues of £19.7 million ($28.1 million = £0.70 = $1) (see IBO 12/15/16). OGT stated that with the acquisition, Sysmex enters the cytogenetics market, offering FISH and aCGH products. Sysmex commented that the purchase also gives it NGS reagent-development capabilities. Product synergies include the combination of Sysmex’s IVD instrumentation business with OGT’s assay development for hematology, solid cancer and rare diseases. The deal is expected to close in June.

OGT has increasingly focused on the clinical research and CE-marked IVD markets, strengthening its FISH probes and microarray offerings for cytogenetics. The acquisition builds upon Sysmex’s increasing investment in genetic testing for clinical diagnostics, which includes DNA amplification, PCR and cell-free DNA analysis. The purchase will also be the company’s entry into the array-based cytogenetics market, where competitors include Agilent Technologies and Thermo Fisher Scientific. For NGS sample preparation for diagnostics, Sysmex is developing the Plasma-Safe-SeqS DNA tagging technology utilizing unique identifiers. Sysmex recorded fiscal 2017 (ending March 31) revenues of ¥249.8 billion ($2.3 billion = ¥108.36 = $1).