VENLO, The Netherlands—Qiagen N.V., a provider of enabling technologies and products for the separation, purification and handling of nucleic acid and proteins announced in late May that its wholly owned subsidiary Qiagen GmbH entered into an agreement to acquire artus GmbH, a provider of PCR-based molecular diagnostic tests for pathogenenic, genotyping and pharmacogenomic testing.

 

artus focuses on selling its diagnostic assays as OEM products to leading diagnostic companies including Abbott Laboratories. Like Qiagen, artus has made significant moves towards regulatory standardization. The artus RealArt assay range was developed for use on a variety of open architecture detection platforms including the Roche LightCycler, the ABI Taqman and the RotorGene  from Corbett Research.