Thursday, October 30, 2008

Caliper sells biz unit for $15.8M to SOTAX

By Mass High Tech Staff

Caliper Life Sciences Inc., a provider of life sciences research tools and services, has announced plans for a $15.8 million sale of its Pharmaceutical Development & Quality Analysis (PDQ) products to SOTAX Corp., a tester and software developer of medical devices, pharmaceuticals and biopharmaceuticals. The acquisition agreement also involves SOTAX’s long-term leasing of 10,000 square feet of Caliper office and manufacturing space and SOTAX’s absorption of “certain Caliper employees currently involved with the PDQ business.”

Caliper’s PDQ business being sold includes drug uniformity and dissolution testing products, TPW3 (Tablet Processing Workstation), APW3 (Active Ingredient Processing Workstation) and MultiDose G3 - Dissolution Workstation.

Under terms of the agreement, SOTAX will provide Caliper with $13.8 million in cash and $2 million in liabilities.

The sale, which involves PDQ’s testing of drug uniformity and dissolution rate, should close in November, Caliper (Nasdaq: CALP) officials said in a statement.

In August, Caliper announced that it had received a task order worth $1.1 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ToxCast screening program to identify new ways to identify toxic chemicals. Since April 2007, through the ToxCast screening program, Caliper has received a total of $3.6 million in task orders to screen potential environmentally toxic chemical compounds.

Hopkinton-based Caliper also announced in April its consolidation of its West Coast operations. The company decided to close its research and development operation in Mountain View, Calif., and move 33 workers from there to its facilities in Alameda, Calif. Thirteen jobs were cut in the move.

Caliper reported a 2007 net loss of $24.1 million on revenue of $140.7 million. The firm employs 550 workers.