QIAGEN acquires Operon Technology

On June 12, 2000, Operon Technologies Inc. (Alameda, CA) announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by QIAGEN (Venlo, The Netherlands). Under the terms of the agreement, QIAGEN will issue approximately 715,000 shares of its common stock (valued at approximately $110 million) in exchange for all of the outstanding capital stock of Operon Technologies. The transaction, which should be completed in the second or third quarter of this year, is intended to qualify as a tax-free reorganization and to be accounted for as a pooling of interests. QIAGEN expects to incur charges related to the acquisition in the amount of $4 million net after taxes following the closing of the transaction. Excluding the effect of these charges (approximately $0.11 per share), QIAGEN expects this transaction to have an immediate and positive impact on QIAGEN's net income per share.

Operon Technologies' core competencies include its massive parallel, high-throughput DNA synthesis technology which is believed to offer significant advantages for primer and probe synthesis as well as "longmer" synthetic nucleic acids of up to 100 bases which can be used for construction of synthetic genes or DNA microarrays. The two companies believe that this high-throughput synthesis technology allows the manufacture of synthetic nucleic acids at unparalleled speed, cost, and quality. The capacity of the Alameda manufacturing site is projected to further increase and by the end of 2001 to reach an output of 150,000 synthetic nucleic acids per day. In addition, Operon Technologies has built a leading position in synthetic, full-length genes and enhanced DNA microarray tools.

Operon Technologies Inc., which employs over 100 people at its facilities in Alameda, California, recorded revenues of $13.3 million and net income of approximately $1.3 million in fiscal 1999. Based on Operon Technologies' first quarter financial results, the company expects to exceed $20 million in net sales for the fiscal year 2000, which ends December 31, 2000.

"Operon Technologies is currently faced with a significant customer demand from the leading genomics and pharmaceutical customers for its products.'' added Robert Saul, founder, chairman, and CEO of Operon Technologies. "In joining forces with the technology, manufacturing and marketing leadership of the QIAGEN group, we believe we now have the best opportunity to optimize our position in the United States and also to build a significant, global presence. We are excited about the opportunities that we have in this combination."

QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands holding company with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Italy, Australia, and Canada, believes it is the world's leading provider of innovative enabling technologies and products for the separation, purification and handling of nucleic acids. The company has developed a comprehensive portfolio of more than 280 proprietary, consumable products for nucleic acid separation, purification and handling, nucleic acid amplification, as well as automated instrumentation, synthetic nucleic acid products and related services.

For more information: Operon Technologies Inc., 1000 Atlantic Ave., Ste. 108 Alameda, CA 94501. Tel: 510-865-8644. Fax: 510-865-5255. Toll Free: 800-688-2248.

Edited by Laura DeFrancesco