Life Technologies To Buy Ion Torrent

Life Technologies will purchase the DNA-sequencing technology company Ion Torrent for $375 million in cash and stock. Shareholders in the privately held company may receive another $350 million in cash and stock through 2012 if certain milestones are reached. Founded in 2007, Ion Torrent has developed technology that doesn’t depend on optical detection and instead translates chemical information into digital form on a semiconductor chip. Later this year, the companies will launch the benchtop-scale Ion Personal Genome Machine, the first product equipped with the technology. Ion Torrent founder Jonathan Rothberg will continue to lead the business.