QIAGEN makes proposal to acquire Australian diagnostics company Cellestis Limited
QIAGEN N.V. has reached an agreement to acquire Cellestis Limited for approximately A$341 million (US$355 million) in cash, providing QIAGEN with access to a novel “pre-molecular” technology that offers a new dimension in disease detection not currently possible with other diagnostic methods.
The acquisition of Cellestis, a publicly listed, profitable company headquartered in Australia, will provide QIAGEN with exclusive rights to QuantiFERON® technology, a proprietary approach for disease detection and monitoring.
Cellestis has successfully commercialized this technology with QuantiFERON®-TB Gold In-Tube (QFT), a leading test for latent tuberculosis (TB), and is in the early stages of commercializing QuantiFERON®-CMV for monitoring of disease risk from the life-threatening cytomegalovirus (CMV). These tests are approved and commercialized in various countries and are believed to have significant untapped market potential.
QuantiFERON® is a patent-protected platform technology that can provide information on diseases far earlier than possible with other diagnostic methods. QuantiFERON® tests whole blood samples for the presence of systemically amplified molecular analytes which provide information from the immune system’s memory.
Based on its ability to provide diagnostic information far earlier than DNA-based molecular tests, QuantiFERON® is considered a “pre-molecular” testing technology. As a result, tests based on QuantiFERON® can even provide critical information on latent infections, where pathogens (bacteria, viruses, fungi) are present in such low amounts that they are not detectable with traditional DNA-based molecular diagnostics.
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