PacBio will Combine Apton’s Proprietary Sequencing Technology With its Highly Accurate Sequencing by Binding Chemistry to Develop a High-Throughput Sequencer Designed to Deliver Billions of Reads per Flow Cell
PacBio, a leading developer of high-quality, highly accurate sequencing solutions, today announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire Apton Biosystems, Inc (Apton), a Bay-Area-based company developing a high throughput short-read sequencer using state-of-the-art optics and image processing, paired with novel clustering and chemistry, that is designed to enable the sequencing of billions of clusters of DNA on one flow cell. As a combined organization, PacBio plans to integrate its Sequencing by Binding (SBB™) short-read chemistry into Apton’s high throughput instrument to offer a differentiated high throughput sequencer.
“I am impressed with Apton’s progress in developing a novel, high throughput sequencing platform that has the potential to deliver very low-cost sequencing at tremendous scale. By integrating our highly accurate SBB technology with Apton’s advanced optics and image processing capabilities, PacBio expects to commercialize a high throughput short-read platform faster than we had planned,” said Christian Henry, President and CEO of PacBio. “This acquisition is consistent with our strategy to develop a multiproduct short-read sequencing portfolio alongside our long-read sequencing platforms, giving us an opportunity to reach an even greater portion of the multi-billion-dollar sequencing market.”
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“It’s exciting to see how seamlessly our SBB chemistry ports over to the Apton system in our initial trial runs,” said Mark Van Oene, Chief Operating Officer at PacBio. “Acquiring Apton accelerates our development timeline and is not currently expected to increase our planned research and development expenses. We can quickly start integrating our chemistries onto Apton’s high throughput sequencing instrument, which we believe will significantly decrease the time required to develop the new platform. Apton has delivered with a lean and agile organization, and we look forward to fast-tracking the development of this new sequencer. Additionally, this comes at an opportune time with Onso entering the commercialization phase, and the Onso development team looks forward to leveraging its expertise in this new project.”
“At Apton, we’ve been relentlessly pursuing advances in both cost and throughput to address customer needs in the high throughput market,” said John Hanna, CEO of Apton. “When PacBio announced its Onso benchtop sequencer, it expanded our imagination of what a high throughput sequencer can offer. We knew that if we could complement our advances in optics with best-in-class chemistry like SBB, we could have the potential to develop a truly differentiated high throughput short-read sequencer, the likes of which hasn’t been seen before.”
Transaction Terms
PacBio’s acquisition agreement for Apton provides for upfront consideration of approximately $85 million in an all-stock transaction consisting of approximately 6.3 million shares of PacBio common stock plus an additional $25 million in stock, cash, or a combination of stock and cash payable in connection with the achievement of $50 million in revenue associated with a high throughput sequencer using Apton’s technology, for an overall transaction valued up to approximately $110 million.
PacBio has also posted a presentation in connection with this acquisition which can be found at investor.pacificbiosciences.com.
Advisors
Allen & Company LLC served as financial advisor to PacBio in connection with the acquisition. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati, P.C. served as counsel for PacBio, and Fenwick & West LLP served as counsel for Apton.
Webcast and more information
The Company will discuss the acquisition of Apton and its financial results for the fiscal second quarter on its quarterly conference call later today. The call will be webcast and may be accessed at the Company’s website at: https://investor.pacificbiosciences.com/.
