Invitrogen to Acquire Biotech Company

Invitrogen Corp., a maker of chemical kits used to analyze and clone genes, agreed to buy BioReliance Corp. for $430 million to expand its production capabilities for biotechnology customers.

Invitrogen will pay $48 a share, Tuesday’s closing price, for BioReliance and assume about $70 million in debt, the companies said in a statement. Carlsbad-based Invitrogen expects the acquisition to be completed by April and to add about 19 cents a share to profit in 2004.

The deal allows Invitrogen to offer more testing and manufacturing services to biotechnology companies that don’t have the staff to perform those tasks and often are developing hard-to-make drugs. Chief Executive Gregory Lucier is acquiring new businesses to offer customers more drug-research services.

“The addition of BioReliance brings us closer to our goal of creating an operating system for drug discovery and disease research,” Lucier said in the statement.

On Wednesday, shares of Rockville, Md.-based BioReliance fell 2 cents to $47.98 on Nasdaq. On Tuesday, it rose $4.51 to $48. Invitrogen rose $4.40 to $69.55 on Wednesday.

Invitrogen has announced almost half a billion dollars in acquisitions in the last year. Lucier, who joined the company in May, used a similar strategy to more than double sales at a General Electric Co. medical business.

Invitrogen bought closely held Molecular Probes Inc. in July for about $325 million in cash to add drug-discovery products. Invitrogen bought assets from Vertex Pharmaceuticals Inc.’s PanVera unit for $95 million, gaining access to about 300 patents on drug-research technology in February.

BioReliance also has worked with British biopharmaceutical firm Acambis to produce smallpox vaccines under a contract with the U.S. BioReliance provides testing and development services for the contract, which also involves Acambis’ partner Baxter International Inc.