BioPharma, Diagnostics

Former Affymetrix execs make offer for company that competes with Thermo Fisher’s

The new company, called Origin Technologies, are making this play about a week before Affymetrix shareholders plan to vote on the Thermo Fisher deal. The new bid will offer shareholders $16.10 per share in cash, up from Thermo Fisher's offer of $14 per share, as the New York Times points out.

dna

A new offer has been made to sidestep Thermo Fisher’s $1.3 billion plan to acquire genetic analysis company Affymetrix: The company’s own former executives have banded up, with the help of a Chinese investor, to pay $1.5 billion for the company.

The new company, called Origin Technologies, are making this play about a week before Affymetrix shareholders plan to vote on the Thermo Fisher deal. The new bid will offer shareholders $16.10 per share in cash, up from Thermo Fisher’s offer of $14 per share, as the New York Times points out.

Origin is backed by Chinese private equity firm SummitView Capital. If Origin’s deal prevails, it’ll actually combine with Centrillion Techology Holdings – a genetic analysis company that was formed by the former Affymetrix employees. NYT writes:

Merging the two would bring together “the two companies’ highly compatible teams and shared values, better positioning Centrillion and Affymetrix to help scientists answer today’s pressing genomics questions and push through breakthroughs in critical areas for human health and safety,” Wei Zhou, Centrillion’s chief executive and one of the former Affymetrix executives, wrote in a letter to his counterpart at Affymetrix.

Analysts said that Thermo Fisher could potentially increase its bid to top the Origins offer. Affymetrix, a maker of DNA microarray technology, has a wide span of gene sequencing products that would fit quite naturally within Thermo Fisher’s portfolio. Thermo Fisher, which acquired San Diego’s Life Technologies two years ago for $13.6 billion, already has a Southern California outpost and has been a natural suitor for the Santa Clara-based Affymetrix.

Shares0
Shares0