Roche acquires gene-chip maker NimbleGen for $273M

Pharmaceutical and diagnostic giant Roche agreed to buy Madison, Wis.-based NimbleGen Systems, a developer of chips that analyze gene activity and variation, for $272.5 million. (The release is here.) NimbleGen had hoped to raise as much as $75 million in an IPO, but faced with the uncertain IPO market for biotechnology companies, apparently decided to sell itself off instead.

NimbleGen, a competitor to better-known makers of microarrays (as gene chips are technically known) such as Affymetrix and Illumina, has an interesting history. In 2002, NimbleGen opened an Icelandic subsidiary that allowed it to circumvent key Affymetrix gene-chip patents for several years. The company eventually reached a deal with Affymetrix last October; a good Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel article details the history (hat tip: Patent Baristas).

Microarrays are primarily used in research to determine how gene activity is related to disease, although they have started to emerge as potential diagnostic tools as well. NimbleGen estimates that global microarray sales amount to $600 million, a market that is currently growing at about 10 percent annually.