QIAGEN-Eppendorf alliance links strong product lines

VENLO , The Netherlands—QIAGEN N.V. and Eppendorf AG recently formed a strategic alliance that includes co-development and co-marketing of complementary and optimized products. In general, the alliance is intended to link what the companies call "two of the strongest brands and product lines in the industry" to ensure the highest compatibility of their products in research, applied testing and molecular diagnostics applications.

Eppendorf boasts expertise in liquid handling, including automated solutions, as well as corresponding plastic products and instrumentation that impacts life science researchers' entire workflow. QIAGEN, for its part, offers talents in preanalytical sample preparation and has created what it considers to be innovative chemistry- and biology-driven consumables for preanalytical solutions, as well as instrumentation for such consumable products.

In addition, QIAGEN acquired Eppendorf's reagent business, which includes the Eppendorf "5-Prime" nucleic acid sample preparation and PCR reagent product lines and related intellectual property. The acquired assets are said to represent a promising pipeline of proprietary technologies for nucleic acid handling, separation, purification and amplification.

Both the strategic alliance and the acquisition are in line with QIAGEN's recent business efforts, which have used collaborations, partnerships and a series of acquisitions to secure analytic technologies, particularly those that could impact its sample preparation and polymerase chain reaction (PCR) business.

"Real-time PCR is a key technology in the rapidly growing life science research markets, and [with various acquisitions and deals] QIAGEN is now very well positioned as a leading manufacturer and supplier of high-quality PCR reagents and kits in this field," says Peer M. Schatz, QIAGEN's CEO. "Also, aligning the brands, product portfolios and innovation engines of QIAGEN and Eppendorf will create a broad array of opportunities to provide significant customer benefits, such as allowing both companies to take ease-of-use and capabilities of molecular biology methods to new levels."

Terms of the Eppendorf reagent transaction were not disclosed, but QIAGEN expects the business to add $6 million in net sales in 2006 and $11 million in 2007.

"Both brands are each considered to be leading brands in their respective markets and are in leagues of their own in terms of reliability and quality," says Klaus Fink, Eppendorf's CEO. "Eppendorf's brand reaches into many areas of science whereas QIAGEN is heavily focused on life science research, applied molecular testing and molecular diagnostics. We believe that this alliance with QIAGEN has the potential to significantly increase the value proposition of Eppendorf products in those areas. Together, our brands address entire workflows with instrumentation as well as consumables and cover the core processes of laboratories employing molecular biology methods."