Is the merger with Bio-Rad coming? No comment was received from either Qiagen or Bio-Rad.
(Photo: Reuters)
new York According to a media report, the two diagnostics groups Qiagen and Bio-Rad Laboratories are negotiating a merger. The talks have been going on for some time, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.
However, an agreement is not expected in the next few weeks. The talks could also fail, according to the US business newspaper.
Qiagen was valued at around $10 billion on the stock exchange on Monday, and Bio-Rad at around $12 billion. There was initially no comment from either Qiagen, which has an operational seat in Hilden near Düsseldorf, or Bio-Rad.
Shares in Qiagen, also listed in the US, jumped eight percent in late trading on Wall Street, while shares in Bio-Rad fell almost ten percent.
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In the past year there had been several merger speculations about the Dax company Qiagen. In media reports, the French rival Biomerieux and the US diagnostics specialist Quidel were traded as interested parties. In 2020, a $10 billion takeover of Qiagen by US laboratory equipment supplier Thermo Fisher failed. The activist investor Davidson Kempner Capital Management had described Qiagen as undervalued; shareholders rejected the plan.
Growing market for medical diagnostics
A successful deal between Qiagen and Bio-Rad would be the latest in a series of mergers in the medical diagnostics market. This has experienced an upswing in the course of the corona pandemic.
Just last year, the US company Illumina paid more than $7 billion for Grail, a US provider that sells blood tests to detect cancer. The state regulator FTC had tried to prevent the takeover for reasons of competition, which failed in court.
According to its own statements, the California-based company Bio-Rad generated sales of 2.9 billion dollars in 2021. Qiagen, with headquarters in Hilden and Germantown, USA, came up with $2.2 billion.
If the recent merger talks bear fruit, it would be one of the largest transactions in recent months. Healthcare companies are considered to be comparatively recession-resistant. However, rising interest rates, high inflation and fears of an economic downturn had also led to lower valuations and a lack of sources of financing for acquisitions in the biotech sector.
With material from Reuters.
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