PE catches the wave

PE Biosystems Group's acquisition of Third Wave Technologies Inc. for $331 million in stock will enable PEB, sibling Celera Genomics Group and parent company PE Corp. to enter two new markets: high volume single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping and primary drug screening via RNA expression assays.

"There is substantial data coming out on genetic variations between humans," said Michael Hunkapiller, president of PEB and senior vice president at PE Corp. "The goal is to obtain this SNP information and correlate it with an individual's predisposition to disease. Therefore, there's a growing need for tools that go beyond those for sequencing."...