bioMerieux Pushes Ahead in Genomics
Executive Summary
BioMerieux's investment in Genome Therapeutics Corp. may be small by pharmaceutical standards, but it signals a significant commitment for an in vitro diagnostics company. The French maker of infectious disease tests and the Massachusetts genomics company are collaborating on the development of tests for infectious diseases for humans and industrial applications. The alliance is broadly reminiscent of the deal between Becton Dickinson and Millenium Predictive Medicine, although the focus is infectious diseases and the size of the investment is much smaller. Still, it signals the increasing importance of novel content to diagnostics companies looking for high-margin, highly proprietary markers to grow their businesses.