Bruker Corporation has announced that it has entered into a definitive share purchase agreement to acquire ELITechGroup, excluding the carved out ELITech clinical chemistry business. The deal was agreed late in 2023 and has now been approved by workers’ council consultations in France and The Netherlands.
Bruker expects to close the transaction in the second quarter of 2024, subject to regulatory approvals, the carve-out of the clinical chemistry business, and other customary closing conditions.
ELITechGroup, with over 500 employees and over 40 active patents, develops and commercialises innovative, proprietary molecular diagnostic (MDx) systems and assays, as well as niche biomedical systems and microbiology products. Its molecular diagnostic business includes the InGenius and BeGenius MDx instruments. Both offer a broad and differentiated menu of esoteric and mainstream PCR diagnostic assays. There is currently a global installed base of more than 1,000 InGenius and BeGenius systems in clinical routine usage, with a focus on Europe and Latin America, primarily in mid-sized hospitals and clinical laboratories.
ELITechGroup´s biomedical systems and microbiology businesses include automated slide stainers, cystic fibrosis sweat testing instruments, osmometer instruments and selected microbiology consumables and assays.
Dr Wolfgang Pusch, the President of Bruker’s Microbiology and Infection Diagnostics division, said: “The ELITech MDx business will give Bruker access to modern sample-to-answer (S2A) systems and a broad infectious disease assay portfolio, including viral testing. ELITech’s breadth of testing menu, ease of use, and fast time-to-result complements Bruker’s novel LiquidArray syndromic panels, specialty fungal infection, tuberculosis, mycobacteria and HIV MDx portfolio. The ELITech esoteric molecular diagnostics portfolio is nicely complementary to our MALDI Biotyper microbial identification platform in infectious disease diagnostics, and both together establish Bruker as an innovative and growing ’Tier 2’ infectious disease specialist in the in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) market.”
Dr Christoph Gauer, the CEO of ELITechGroup, who is expected to join Bruker with his entire leadership team, added: “ELITechGroup is the company that it is today thanks to our teams' hard work and drive for innovation. Establishing this unique business within Bruker - a well-respected global life-science tools and specialty diagnostics company - provides an exciting opportunity to further grow our molecular diagnostics, microbiology and biomedical systems portfolios. We expect to capitalise on infectious disease portfolio and commercial synergies for opportunities to further expand our portfolio, utilising R&D innovations and global customer support within Bruker.”