Beckman Coulter to Acquire Exclusive Rights to Break-Through Te...( Acquisition of Remainder of NexG...)

Acquisition of Remainder of NexGen Diagnostics Captures Promising

Intellectual Property

FULLERTON, Calif., Nov. 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Beckman Coulter, Inc. (NYSE: BEC), a leading developer of products that simplify and automate complex biomedical testing announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the remaining 80.1 percent of NexGen Diagnostics LLC, a spin out of Lumigen, Inc., effected prior to Beckman Coulter's acquisition of Lumigen in 2006.

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Since NexGen's assets consist of intellectual property unrelated to current products, Beckman Coulter expects to take a charge of approximately $36 million for in-process R&D when the acquisition closes in the fourth quarter of 2007. The technologies have the potential to revolutionize high sensitivity testing, including immunoassay and nucleic acid, due to their inherently superior speed and simplicity.

Richard Creager, corporate vice president of Beckman Coulter's Immunoassay Business Center, said, "We are very enthusiastic about the potential that these proprietary technologies have to improve patient health and reduce the cost of care. If fully realized, they will simplify and automate certain types of immunodiagnostic and nucleic acid testing in remarkable ways, dramatically enhancing the performance of assays and accelerating turn-around time of test results."

The dramatic improvement in turn-around time is a result of a proprietary non-separation immunoassay technology which eliminates time-consuming steps while maintaining the exquisite se
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