Beckman Coulter Inc. has made its first deal under new Chief Executive Scott Garrett.
Fullerton-based Beckman Coulter said last week that it was spending up to $140 million to buy biotechnology company Agencourt Bioscience Corp. of Beverly, Mass.
Agencourt, which is privately held, provides genomic services and nucleic acid purification projects.
Genomics, the study of human genes, is one of Beckman Coulter’s key pushes in its biomedical research unit. Agencourt is one of five large-scale National Human Genome Research Institute-funded gene-sequencing centers whose goal is to sequence the genomes or organisms with high medical importance.
“Agencourt will become a Beckman Coulter center of excellence for nucleic acid science,” said Elias Caro, president of Beckman Coulter’s biomedical research division, in a release.
Caro said the deal brings technology, “talented scientists” and a services business to the company, among other things.
Beckman Coulter said it would pay $100 million at the closing of the deal, expected at the end of May, and up to $40 million of contingent payments through 2007.
The medical testing company said it expected the Agencourt deal to reduce its second-half earnings by a little amount, but give a boost in the second half of 2006.
Garrett, whose background includes deal making and spinoffs, recently succeeded longtime Beckman head John Wareham in the chief executive position.
In a March interview, Garrett said Beckman Coulter was “screening opportunities all the time” for potential deals and “when we find the right business at the right price, we’ll be making acquisitions.”
Also on the biotech front, Beckman Coulter is suing Norwalk, Conn.-based Applera Corp., which undertook a $100 million effort in 2001 to map the body’s genetic makeup.
Beckman’s lawsuit dates back to 2002 and was filed in federal court in Santa Ana. The company charges Applera units with infringing on its patent for a gel used in the process of measuring and mapping out genetic molecules.
