454 Life Sciences Announces The Completion Of Its Acquisition By Roche

Branford, CT - 454 Life Sciences announced today the completion of its acquisition by Roche Holdings, Inc. 454 Life Sciences, with its 167 employees, will remain in Branford, Connecticut as a member of the Roche Diagnostics organization.

"Now that 454 Life Science is part of Roche, we are prepared to further strengthen our sequencing business and to provide cutting edge sequencing technology to the worldwide research community," said Manfred Baier, Head of Roche Applied Sciences.

"Our merger with Roche brings added resources to the research and development and manufacturing activities in our Branford facilities, both of which are expected to expand as we see increasing demand for our sequencing products and services," said Christopher McLeod, President of 454 Life Sciences. "Our customers can expect continued development of 454 Sequencing technology from this exciting business combination."

454 Life Sciences was founded in 2000 as a majority-owned subsidiary of CuraGen Corporation, with the mission of developing affordable, high- throughput DNA sequencing. 454 Life Sciences and Roche have been operating under a research and marketing collaboration established in May 2005 under which Roche Diagnostics has acted as the exclusive worldwide distributor of the Genome Sequencer systems and associated reagents. In March 2007, 454 Life Sciences and Roche signed a definitive merger agreement under which Roche would acquire 100% of 454 Life Sciences Corporation.

SOURCE: 454 Life Sciences