LION Bioscience acquires NetGenics of the USA to broaden its

Claiming that "the race for the multidisciplinary integrationplatform is finished, " Germany's LION Bioscience AG has announced plans to acquire NetGenics of the USA, a privately-held company that specializes in informatics solutions. Under the terms of the stock deal, LION will buy the firm in exchange for around 1.12 million of its American Depository Receipts.

The deal was announced on January 15, and LION's ADRs, which are traded on the Nasdaq, ended the previous day at $15.70. The transaction is due to close in the first quarter of 2002 and, upon completion of the deal, NetGenics will become a wholly-owned susidiary of LION.

LION said the integration of biological and chemical information is a key area "and has been the missing link for large knowledge- management solutions and unattainable for life science organizations up to now." However, the German firm believes that different disciplines "can now easily be combined" through the merger of its SRS technology with NetGenics' integration environment Discovery Center, "creating the broadest and most versatile platform in the life sciences and making it available to a large number of end users .".