Merck KGaA, a global pharmaceutical and chemical company, has successfully completed its acquisition of Millipore Corporation, a leading life science company for an aggregate purchase price including debt and cash of approximately $7.0 billion.

Following the acquisition, the German pharma major formed EMD Millipore which is the life science division of Merck KGaA.

Merck agreed to acquire Millipore on February 28, 2010 for $107 in cash per share of Millipore common stock. The closing follows the approval of the acquisition by Millipore's shareholders at a special meeting held on June 3, 2010 and the satisfaction of other customary conditions, including antitrust clearance in the United States and Europe. It will now begin the process of delisting the shares of Millipore from the New York Stock Exchange and remove the shares from registration with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

"With today's launch of EMD Millipore (Merck Millipore outside US and Canada), we are creating a world-class partner for the Life Science sector, with a comprehensive product offering and enhanced global scale and innovative power," said Dr Karl-Ludwig Kley, chairman, Merck Executive Board.

"We will now move quickly to bring together the expertise and complementary capabilities of both Merck and Millipore employees to capture the significant opportunities in the high-growth, high-margin market segments such as bio-research and bio-production," he added.

With the close of the transaction, Dr Bernd Reckmann will head EMD Millipore division but oversee both the EMD Millipore and Performance Materials divisions, and as a member of the Executive Board.

"The increased breadth of the EMD Millipore product portfolio, together with the expertise of our talented people, will allow us to deepen our customer relationships and gain the new insights we need to further drive innovation. We will also bring together our research and development capabilities, which will make EMD Millipore one of the top three investors in R&D in the Life Science Tools industry. This, in turn, will enable us to create greater value for our customers," stated Dr Reckmann.