QIAGEN Transfers Distribution Rights for Transplantation Testing Product Portfolio and Related Assets to LinkMed

Transaction allows QIAGEN to increase focus on personalized medicine applications of HLA testing products

18-Jun-2009 - Netherlands

QIAGEN N.V. announced that it has signed an agreement to transfer distribution rights for the Olerup SSP product line and the related assets to Olerup International AB, a subsidiary of LinkMed, a Swedish venture capital company specializing in Life Sciences.

The Olerup SSP product line includes molecular transplantation testing products used for DNA HLA typing. QIAGEN will retain rights to all Olerup SSP assays for applications outside transplantation testing, such as in personalized medicine. The transaction does not affect QIAGEN’s presence in new sequencing-based typing assays in the area of transplantation. As part of the transaction, QIAGEN will transfer all assets related to its Olerup SSP HLA sales infrastructure to LinkMed, including office infrastructure in Austria. LinkMed will assume this office’s staff of eight employees.

Through this transaction, QIAGEN is increasing its focus on the higher growth applications in transplantation testing such as sequencing-based typing, as well as the application of such assays in personalized medicine.

According to the agreement, QIAGEN will continue to have distribution rights to Olerup SSP products that can be used in applications outside transplantation testing, such as the rapidly emerging use of such products in personalized medicine. Such tests include, among others, the typing of the HLA-B*5701 allele – a test to assess the risk of AIDS patients for severe adverse reactions to the widely prescribed HIV drug component Abacavir. The agreement also includes options for QIAGEN to distribute future Olerup SSP assays for pharmacogenetic applications.

The transaction is expected to reduce QIAGEN’s revenues in the second half of 2009 by approximately US$10 million but will neither impact the company’s expected adjusted earnings per share for full year 2009 nor future expected earnings.

https://www.bionity.com/en/news/102176/qiagen-transfers-distribution-rights-for-transplantation-testing-product-portfolio-and-related-assets-to-linkmed.html