The Door Opens Wider for BioTime’s (BTIM) Products
Merck KGaA agreed to buy Millipore (MIL), a supplier of drug-development equipment for biotechnology companies for about $6 B in cash, beating a rival offer from Thermo Fisher Scientific. BTIM’s ACTCellerate™ progenitor cell lines and ESpan™ cell growth media sell through MIL. Merck KGaA will pay $107 a share and is a Germany based company. The offer is 13 % more than Millipore’s closing price on 2/26/10 and 50 % higher. Millipore, based in Billerica, Massachusetts, put itself up for sale after getting an unsolicited takeover bid worth less than $95 a share from Thermo Fisher (Bloomberg).
Reiterating from our 1/14/10 blog: BioTime’s (BTIM) research products are available through Millipore (MIL), a leading supplier of stem cell research reagents. BTIM has shipped inventory of ACTCellerate™ progenitor cell lines to MIL and plans shipments of additional cell lines and ESpan™ cell growth media. Derived from human embryonic stem cells but not fully differentiated into specific cell types (each ACTCellerate™ line provides a convenient, highly purified source of progenitor cells that may have applications in drug discovery, research and the development of therapeutic products).
