PE Biosystems Acquires Third Wave Technologies

PE Biosystems (Foster City, CA) and Third Wave Technologies (Madison, WI) have signed a definitive merger agreement under which PE Biosystems will acquire Third Wave in a stock-for-stock transaction. The transaction, which has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies, is structured as a tax-free pooling of interests. All of the equity of Third Wave will be exchanged for an aggregate of approximately 1,972,000 shares of PE Biosystems common stock, before giving effect to the 2-for-1 stock dividend declared January 20, 2000, for distribution on February 18, 2000.

Third Wave developed the Invader nucleic acid detection technology, which can rapidly detect single base-pair differences among genetic sequences. This technology is expected to accelerate the understanding, diagnosis and treatment of disease by enabling rapid, large-scale testing of SNPs. This technology will be used with PE Biosystems' Sequence Detection Systems (SDS), a proprietary technology for real-time analysis of genetic information.

Invader assays on PE Biosystems' SDS platform should accelerate experiments designed to link SNPs to diseases and drug responses. It also will enable pharmaceutical researchers to create and use thousands of individual tests needed for drug discovery and clinical trials, and could lead to diagnostic advances in patient profiling and personalized medicine.

PE Biosystems' microfluidic and microarray technologies could be used in combination with the Invader technology. PE Biosystems' sister business, Celera Genomics, is expected to use these combined technologies to accelerate its SNP analysis.

"We believe that our merger with PE Biosystems will provide the opportunity to make the Invader technology the methodology of choice for the detection of genetic variations in both research and clinical applications," said Lance Fors, founder and CEO of Third Wave. "Additionally, there promises to be strong synergies between the Invader technology and PE Biosystems' portfolio of technologies, which should strengthen the Invader technology product offerings."

PE Biosystems, an operating group of PE Corp. (), develops and markets instrument-based systems, reagents, software, and contract services to the life science industry and research community. PE Biosystems comprises four divisions: Applied Biosystems, PE Informatics, PerSeptive Biosystems, and Tropix.

Third Wave Technologies Inc. develops and provides DNA and RNA analysis technologies and products for use in research, pharmacogenomics, and clinical applications.

For more information: PE Biosystems Group, 850 Lincoln Centre Dr., Foster City, CA 94404. Tel: 650-638-5800. Fax: 650-638-5884.

Edited by Laura DeFrancesco