Agilent announces acquisition of Seahorse Bioscience

Agilent Technologies has announced the acquisition of Seahorse Bioscience in a deal worth $235 million (152.28 million pounds).

Seahorse Bioscience is a leading provider of instruments and assay kits for measuring cell metabolism and bioenergetics. It is based in Massachusetts, with regional offices in Copenhagen and Shanghai.

Its proprietary XF Technology is used to research the role of cell metabolism in a range of conditions, including neurodegeneration, ageing, cancer, cardiovascular disease, immunology, infectious diseases, mitochondrial diseases, obesity, diabetes, metabolic disorders.

Seahorse's full-year revenue for 2015 is estimated to be $49 million. It employs just under 200 people, most of whom are expected to join Agilent.

Patrick Kaltenbach, president of Agilent's life sciences and applied markets group, said: "Seahorse Bioscience's unique technology is the perfect complement to Agilent's market-leading separations and mass spectrometry solutions, in particular for metabolomics research and disease research in pharma."

This comes after the firm agreed to acquire Cartagenia, a leading provider of life science software and services, earlier this year.