Friday, January 9, 2009

Idexx licenses blood separator tech from Iris

By Mass High Tech staff

Maine-based maker of animal health biotech devices, tests, software and diagnostic kits, Idexx Laboratories Inc., will pay $1.5 million to license blood separator technology from California firm Iris International Inc. for use in Idexx’s new chemistry analyzer for the veterinary market.

According to Iris (Nasdaq: IRIS) officials, Idexx (Nasdaq: IDXX) will also pay future royalties to Iris beginning in 2014 for technology that includes internal centrifugal drive systems and related whole blood separators. In addition, for the life of the agreement, which runs through 2020, Iris will exclusively manufacture and sell to Idexx the internal centrifugal drive system it developed for the Idexx analyzer. Idexx could manufacture the drive systems itself starting in 2016 by paying IRIS a per unit royalty for the remaining term of the agreement.

In November, Idexx completed a major expansion, adding a 200,000 square-foot building with offices and manufacturing space to its Westbrook, Maine, facility. Idexx was leasing space at 1 Idexx Drive prior to 2006, when it purchased the 460,000 square-foot campus outright for $18 million.

About 82 percent of the company’s revenue comes from veterinarian products for companion animals. Idexx made $94 million in profit on $923 million in revenue in 2007, up 25 percent from $723 million in revenue in 2006.