Bayer Acquires Rights to Infectious Disease Diagnostics

In a move that will add important immunodiagnostic tests to it infectious disease offerings, Bayer Diagnostics (Tarrytown, NY, USA) has acquired certain development, manufacturing, and sales rights to assays for the detection of hepatitis C (HCV) and HIV from Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (New Brunswick, NJ, USA), and Chiron Corp. (Emeryville, CA, USA). Under the terms of the agreement, Bayer will manufacture the HCV and HIV antibody assays with Ortho/Chiron labeling and will act as Ortho's exclusive sales agent in offering these products for use on Bayer's immunodiagnostic systems.

Bayer is also developing a full array of hepatitis B and hepatitis A assays for its automated immunoassay platform, the Advia Centaur. By expanding its infectious disease menu of assays, Bayer says it will compete more effectively in the US$1 billion hepatitis and HIV clinical diagnostics market. "This transaction is a critical part of our growth strategy in the laboratory testing segment of the in-vitro diagnostics marketplace,” said Rolf Classon, president of Bayer Diagnostics.

In a related development, Bayer has been granted a nonexclusive, worldwide license to certain patent rights of Roche Diagnostics GmbH (Basel, Switzerland) and Dade Behring (Deerfield, IL, USA) that will enable Bayer to develop and produce immunoassays to test patient blood samples for the presence of antibodies for HIV Group O—which is part of the worldwide health-care standard for detecting all known types of HIV infection, including HIV-1 and HIV-2.




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