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September 28, 2009
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Agilent Technologies (A) has entered into a marketing partnership with Applied Biosystems, a division of Life Technologies Corporation (LIFE).
The subject matter of the agreement is Agilent’s SureSelect system, a research tool to be used for re-sequencing specific regions of interest in the genome. The product has been optimized for the SOLiDU system, a next-generation advanced genomic analysis-sequencing platform.
Life Technologies Corporation supplies genotyping tools that facilitate academic and clinical research, drug discovery and development, pathogen detection and forensic DNA analysis.
The agreement is a positive for Agilent’s Bio Analytic Measurement (BAM) segment, given Life’s market position and experience. We believe it indicates that the recession-driven weakness could be coming to an end and expect the announcement of other marketing initiatives in the next few months.
The BAM segment generated $496 million in revenue in the last quarter, which was flattish in comparison to the preceding quarter and down around 8% from the year-ago quarter. The weakness was driven primarily by the chemical analysis business, which declined 17.9% and further worsened by the life sciences business (down 5.3%). The weakness in the life sciences business was partially recession-driven and partially due to consolidation in the large pharma market.
However, the BAM segment orders increased 2.5% sequentially, following two quarters of decline, a further indication that the company is now seeing a stronger market. The BTB was 0.99. The segment also generated an operating margin of 2.2%, an increase of 48 bps from the second quarter.
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