Life Technologies of Carlsbad said Monday that it completed a $375 million acquisition of Ion Torrent, a Guilford, Conn., company with an innovative genetic sequencing technology.
The deal was first announced in August.
Standard DNA sequencing devices use a chemical process to attach fluorescent tags to individual pieces of DNA, which are then illuminated by lasers and photographed with a high-tech camera. Super computers interpret the light signals and convert them into usable genetic data. The process is time consuming and costly.
With the technology developed by Ion Torrent, tiny pH meters measure the change in acidity that occurs in a solution when DNA base pairs are formed. Those pH changes are then translated into the alphabet code that identifies genetic strands.
The acquisition comes as competition heats up in the race to introduce cheaper and faster ways of generating full genomic sequences.
The former Ion owners could receive up to $350 million in additional cash and stock from Life if certain milestones are reached by 2012.
Shares of Life fell 41 cents, or nearly 1 percent, to close Monday at $46.47.
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