The molecular diagnostic company, Celera, said it has agreed to buy South San Francisco-based privately held Atria Genetics, Inc. for about $33 million in cash.

According to the definitive agreement, Celera will acquire substantially all of the assets of Atria. Atria has a line of human leukocyte antigen (HLA) testing products that are used for identifying potential donors in the matching process for bone marrow transplantation. The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close during the second quarter of Celera's fiscal 2008.

According to the company announcement, Atria participates in the estimated $175 million HLA market, of which approximately 20 per cent is in bone marrow transplantation and the bone marrow registry and the rest in solid organ matching. Since January 2004, Atria's current HLA sequencing-based typing products have been marketed and distributed worldwide by Abbott Molecular through its alliance with Celera. These revenues have been included in the end-user revenues reported by Celera, although Celera currently receives a low single digit percentage royalty on these revenues, as these products are not part of the profit or loss arrangement within the Abbott alliance.

With this acquisition, Celera will retain 60 per cent of these end-user revenues under the current distribution agreement with Abbott, and will also continue to receive a low single digit percentage royalty on the total end-user revenues. Fiscal 2006 end-user revenues for the Atria products were approximately $12 million, which grew approximately 10 per cent over the prior year. Atria has been profitable since 2003, according to the company press release.

"This acquisition gives us direct access to this important niche market area of tissue typing in transplantation and the bone marrow registry markets. Importantly, this is expected to contribute to Celera's objective of providing high margin products with accretive value in a market that is complementary to ours. Additionally, this acquisition has a strong strategic fit enabling our horizontal expansion as we look to exploit the potential for this product line in next generation sequencing," said, Kathy Ordoñez, president, Celera

Celera currently anticipates that this acquisition will be accretive to earnings in the second half of fiscal 2008, excluding the impact of acquisition-related intangible amortization and transaction and integration expenses. The exact amount of accretion will only be known after the completion of an analysis of the allocation of the purchase price. Atria has 13 employees, all of whom are expected to be integrated into Celera, the company said.

"We're excited about the opportunity to integrate Celera's molecular expertise with our success in HLA testing. Celera brings added expertise and resources that will help us expand and accelerate the development of new products and services for the immunogenetics and autoimmunity fields," said, Pete Krausa, Ph.D., president, Atria Genetics.

The HLA proteins are integral to the function of the immune system and are located on the surface of white blood cells and other tissues in the body. There are two main classes of HLA genes, class I (including HLA-A, HLA-B and HLA-C) and class II (HLA-DR, HLA-DP and HLA-DQ).