NEWS OF THE WEEK
DANAHER WILL BUY BECKMAN COULTER DIAGNOSTICS: $6.8 billion acquisition expands Danaher’s move into life sciences
D
ANAHER HAS AGREED to acquire biomedical
and lab automation equipment maker Beckman Coulter for $6.8 billion in cash and debt. Danaher is a diversified holding company that owns businesses as varied as microscopes, water treatment technologies, and hand tools. Danaher’s $83.50-per-share offer for Beckman represents a 45% premium on the closing price of Beckman’s stock on Dec. 9, 2010, the day before rumors of a sale began. With annual revenues of some $3.7 billion, Beckman sells laboratory equipment for diagnostics and drug discovery. In recent years, Danaher has been adding to its life sciences and diagnostics segment. In September 2009, the company paid $1.1 billion to acquire BECKMAN COULTER
A lab worker uses a Beckman Coulter automation instrument.
mass spectrometry firm AB Sciex from its two owners, MDS and Life Technologies. The purchase pushed Danaher into the top 10 among global instrumentation firms (C&EN, April 26, 2010, page 22). That deal set off a busy season for instrumentation acquisitions. In May 2010, Agilent Technologies completed its $1.5 billion acquisition of Varian, part of a strategy to boost its exposure to the analytics and life sciences markets. And in December 2010, Thermo Fisher Scientific said it would pay $2.1 billion to buy Dionex, a leader in liquid and ion chromatography. Beckman’s focus on the life sciences is fairly recent. The company was founded in 1935 to sell the first commercial pH meter, invented by Arnold O. Beckman. In 1997, it acquired Coulter and its blood-testing instruments. Beckman expanded into clinical chemistry systems in 2009. But the firm’s fortunes dipped last June when it received an FDA warning letter saying it did not seek proper approval to sell a biomarker assay for acute myocardial infarction. The company’s CEO, Scott Garrett, unexpectedly resigned in September. Life sciences companies are attractive targets for Danaher because it looks for fast-growing, technologybased businesses that bring high margins and an opportunity for international growth, says Efraim Levy, an equities analyst at Standard & Poor’s. In addition, Levy points out, “Beckman has some similarities to Danaher’s own businesses.”—MELODY BOMGARDNER
ORGANIC CRYSTALS LIGHT UP
O H ( )5O
O( ) 5 Br
P
JINSANG KIM
A crystalline mixture of bromobenzaldehyde (shown) and dibromobenzene compounds glows green after exposure to ultraviolet light.
ed electron flips its spin, making quantum mechanically forbidden transitions. Such transitions are easier in inorganic or organometallic compounds. Phosphorescent materials in applications such as light-emitting diodes or sensors are typically made from organometallic comMATERIALS: Compounds use halogen incorporating precious metals such as iridium. bonds for metal-free phosphorescence pounds Michigan materials science professor Jinsang Kim and colleagues instead designed a molecule, 2,5-dihexyloxy-4-bromobenzaldehyde, that incorporates both an HOSPHORESCENT organic crystals can be aromatic carbonyl group and a bromine atom. In soluchemically tuned to glow in different colors tion, the molecules are weakly fluorescent. When they without the need for metals, researchers from crystallize, however, halogen bonds—noncovalent inthe University of Michigan report (Nat. Chem., DOI: teractions akin to hydrogen bonds—form between the 10.1038/nchem.984). bromine of one molecule and the aldehyde oxygen of “Traditionally, purely organic maanother. The arrangement promotes the spin-flipping terials have been widely considered transitions and results in crystals that glow green. to be nonphosphorescent,” says WaiThe phosphorescence can be enhanced by diluting Yeung Wong, a chemistry professor and the bromobenzaldehyde crystals with a dibromobenmember of the Centre for Advanced zene analog, which helps shut down self-quenching Luminescence Materials at Hong Kong pathways but still makes plenty of bromine atoms availBaptist University. The able for halogen bonds to aldehyde groups. MORE ONLINE new organic crystals offer a Kim and coworkers were also able to simple, low-cost approach tune the phosphorescence color by alto activating solid-state phosphorestering the structure of the molecule. Exchanging the cence at room temperature, Wong adds. alkoxy arms for alkyl or thioether groups produced Phosphorescence is similar to fluoblue or yellow-green phosphorescence, respectively. rescence in that a substance absorbs and Replacing the central benzene ring with a naphthyl then reemits electromagnetic radiation. core yielded dark-orange phosphorescence.—JYLLIAN In phosphorescence, however, the excitKEMSLEY WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG
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FEBRUARY 14, 2011
