Roche purchases IVD testing solutions firm PVT

Roche has announced the acquisition of PVT, a market-leading provider of automation and workflow solutions for the in-vitro diagnostic testing sector.

The deal will see Roche pay an upfront fee of 65 million euros (56.43 million pounds) to take control of PVT's European and US operations, plus a potential extra 20 million euros in performance-related milestone payments.

PVT and Roche have been working in partnership for more than 15 years, with Roche distributing products such as the RSA Pro and RSD Pro systems in Europe, Asia and Latin America.

The acquisition will strengthen Roche's presence in the laboratory core business, giving it access to a range of products in the fields of centrifuging, pipetting and sample sorting and archiving.

Colin Brown, head of Roche Professional Diagnostics, said: "With this acquisition, we gain a very talented group of people with strong expertise and domain knowledge, which we expect to be instrumental in meeting our customers' demands."

Earlier this month, the company announced a new partnership with RainDance Technologies to develop a new targeted sequencing solution for use in drug analysis.