WuXi PharmaTech (Cayman) Inc. (NYSE: WX), a leading pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device research and development services company with operations in China and the United States, today announced the acquisition of Abgent, Inc., a provider of biological research reagent products and services based in Suzhou, China, and San Diego, California.
Founded in 2001, Abgent is already one of the world's largest manufacturers of antibody reagents for research use. The company maintains a comprehensive catalog of about 20,000 antibody products. Abgent also serves as the original manufacturer of antibodies distributed by large reagent suppliers. The company distributes its antibody reagent products by direct sales through its web portal and small sales force and through a network of distributors around the world. In addition to manufacturing antibodies, Abgent also develops and produces peptides and proteins for research and diagnostic applications.
The acquisition of Abgent is a logical extension of WuXi's successful business model. WuXi has achieved strong growth for the past decade by building capabilities and capacities to provide high-quality and cost-effective services for global customers in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical-device industries. Abgent brings to WuXi new product lines of biological research reagents for drug discovery and basic research to expand our service offering to our existing customers and to new customers in the life-science research community.
Abgent utilizes a high-quality, low-cost development and production base, operating state-of-art facilities consisting of a 34,000 square-foot laboratory in Suzhou and a 10,000 square-foot laboratory and office in San Diego. The company has about 150 employees. Dr. Chun Wu, founder and CEO of Abgent, will continue to run the Abgent business unit post-acquisition as Vice President of Biological Reagent Products and Services.
The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
"WuXi's acquisition of Abgent continues our strategy leveraging the advantages of our China-based operations to provide high-quality services and products needed by the world's biopharmaceutical and scientific researchers," said Dr. Ge Li, Chairman and CEO of WuXi. "WuXi's mission is to build a platform that will allow anyone and any company to discover and develop drugs more efficiently and cost effectively for patients. Under Chun's leadership, Abgent has built a successful integrated development and production platform of catalog and customized antibody reagents for the global research reagent market. WuXi's broad capabilities and customer relationships can take Abgent to the next level. I am very excited about this small but strategically important acquisition and look forward to working with Chun to better the way future research reagents will be supplied."
"We at Abgent are excited by the opportunity to join WuXi PharmaTech to achieve the vision of creating a comprehensive, integrated R&D platform to serve the worldwide pharmaceutical industry and research community," said Dr. Wu, founder and CEO of Abgent.
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