USA — DiaSorin’s subsidiary Luminex Corporation has announced that it will sell its Flow Cytometry & Imaging (FCI) business unit to Cytek Biosciences Inc in cash deal worth US$46.5 million.
The FCI business unit, which was acquired by Luminex in October 2018, offers conventional and image-based flow cytometry instrumentation that provides comprehensive insights into cellular phenotypes and morphology.
The FCI business unit has its own dedicated commercial, operations, R&D, and supporting personnel.
With this acquisition, Cytek will gain access to an installed base of more than 7,000 instruments, expanding the company’s global commercial footprint.
This move aligns with Luminex’s strategic priorities, as communicated to investors during the Capital Market Day in December 2021. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the sale of Luminex’s Flow Cytometry & Imaging (FCI) business unit to Cytek Biosciences, Inc. includes assets related to the manufacturing, marketing, selling, and servicing of Luminex’s Amnis, CellStream, Guava, and Muse instruments, as well as Luminex’s flow cytometry reagent products and services.
By integrating the Amnis imaging flow cytometers, which offer high-resolution cell images, with the speed, sensitivity, and phenotyping abilities of flow cytometry, Cytek will be able to provide researchers and scientists with first-to-market tools that can produce more accurate and detailed data.
Furthermore, the addition of Guava flow cytometers to its core instrument offerings will enable Cytek to provide cost-effective, entry-level, and personal instrument options to a broader market and research areas, thereby expanding the company’s reach and services.
This deal will provide Cytek with access to Luminex’s installed instruments and 1,500 customers in about 70 countries, expanding the company’s global reach and efficiency.
Cytek’s CEO, Wenbin Jiang, stated that this acquisition will also enable the company to increase sales of its Aurora and Northern Lights instruments.
DiaSorin purchased Luminex for US$1.8 billion less than two years ago, acquiring the company’s multiplexing technology and molecular testing products, including a wide range of tests for infectious diseases and genetic tests for women’s health.
Luminex President Angelo Rago mentioned in a statement on Monday that Luminex is working with DiaSorin on multiple projects to promote its growth as a “specialty player over the next years.”
Rago stated that to achieve this goal, Luminex needs to focus on the core of its future and decided to sell the flow cytometry and imaging business unit to a leading player in the space, Cytek Biosciences, Inc.
Meanwhile, Bio-Rad Laboratories and Cytek Biosciences have announced a strategic partnership where Cytek will use Bio-Rad’s StarBright Dyes to develop and commercialize reagents for use with its Aurora and Northern Lights flow cytometry systems.
Financial details of the partnership have not been disclosed. Cytek will leverage Bio-Rad’s dyes to develop single-vial reagents and multicolor panels to support applications on its over 1,500 Full Spectrum Profiling (FSP) instruments placed in more than 40 countries.
The integration of Bio-Rad’s StarBright Dyes with Cytek’s proprietary cFluor dyes will provide a wider range of color options for multiplexed panel design and application development, and will also be incorporated into Cytek immunoprofiling assays.
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