Diagnostics firm Bio-Rad in talks to merge with Qiagen – WSJ

(Reuters) -California-based diagnostics company Bio-Rad Laboratories is in talks to merge with Qiagen NV, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Talks between the two companies have been going on for a while but an agreement is unlikely for another few weeks, the report said.

U.S-listed shares of Qiagen rose 8% while Bio-Rad fell nearly 10% after the report.

Bio Rad, which manufactures and supplies products such as laboratory apparatus, instruments and diagnostics, has a market-cap of $12.85 billion.

Both Qiagen and Bio-Rad did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comments.

According to the WSJ report, a deal between the two companies could be worth more than $10 billion, making it one of the biggest in the healthcare testing domain after Illumina Inc’s $8-billion takeover of cancer-testing firm Grail.

Lab equipment supplier Thermo Fisher Scientific in 2020 made a 11.3-billion-euro bid to acquire Qiagen, which fell through after Qiagen shareholders rejected the offer following a hedge fund’s campaign.

(Reporting by Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru;Editing by Vinay Dwivedi)