QIAGEN and Ventana Announce Settlement of Patent Dispute
Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Tucson, Arizona, December 19, 2007 -
QIAGEN Gaithersburg Inc. (formerly Digene Corporation), a wholly
owned subsidiary of QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt, Prime
Standard: QIA) ("QIAGEN" or the "Company"), and Ventana Medical
Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: VMSI) today announced that on December 15,
2007 they agreed to a settlement of the litigation of expired patents
4,849,331 and 4,849,332 pending between them on mutually agreeable
terms. As part of that settlement an undisclosed cash consideration
was paid by Ventana to QIAGEN and QIAGEN acknowledges that pursuant
to an Asset Purchase Agreement dated September 23, 2002, Ventana has
lawfully succeeded to the rights of Beckman Coulter under the
Cross-License Agreement originally entered into between Institut
Pasteur and Life Technologies, Inc., effective April 1, 1990, and
under the Agreement between Institut Pasteur and Beckman Instruments
(now Beckman Coulter), effective June 7, 1991.
The settlement was in reference to currently expired US Patent No.
4,849,331 titled "Human Papillomavirus 44 Nucleic Acid Hybridization
Probes and methods for Employing the Same" and US Patent No.
4,849,332 titled "Human Papillomavirus 35 Nucleic Acid Hybridization
Probes and methods for Employing the Same".
About QIAGEN
QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands holding company, is the leading provider
of innovative sample and assay technologies and products. QIAGEN's
products are considered standards in areas such pre-analytical sample
preparation and assay solutions in research for life sciences,
applied testing and molecular diagnostics. QIAGEN has developed a
comprehensive portfolio of more than 500 proprietary, consumable
products and automated solutions for sample collection, nucleic acid
and protein handling, separation, and purification and open and
target specific assays. The company's products are sold to academic
research markets, to leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology
companies, to applied testing customers (such as in forensics,
veterinary, biodefense and industrial applications) as well as to
molecular diagnostics laboratories. QIAGEN employs more than 2,600
people in more than 30 locations worldwide. QIAGEN products are sold
through a dedicated sales force and a global network of distributors
in more than 40 countries. Further information about QIAGEN can be
found at www.qiagen.com.
About Ventana Medical Systems, Inc.
Ventana develops, manufactures, and markets instrument/reagent
systems that automate tissue preparation and slide staining in
clinical histology and drug discovery laboratories worldwide. The
Company's clinical systems are important tools used in the diagnosis
and treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Ventana's drug
discovery systems are used to accelerate the discovery of new drug
targets and evaluate the safety of new drug compounds. Visit the
Ventana Medical Systems, Inc. website at www.ventanamed.com.
Certain of the statements contained in this news release may be
considered forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section
27A of the U.S. Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E
of the U.S. Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. To the
extent that any of the statements contained herein relating to
QIAGEN's products, markets, strategy or operating results are
forward-looking, such statements are based on current expectations
that involve a number of uncertainties and risks. Such uncertainties
and risks include, but are not limited to, risks associated with
management of growth and international operations (including the
effects of currency fluctuations and risks of dependency on
logistics), variability of operating results, the commercial
development of the applied testing markets, clinical research markets
and proteomics markets, nucleic acid-based molecular diagnostics
market, and genetic vaccination and gene therapy markets,
competition, rapid or unexpected changes in technologies,
fluctuations in demand for QIAGEN's, products (including fluctuations
due to the level and timing of customers' funding, budgets, and other
factors), our ability to obtain regulatory approval of our infectious
disease panels, difficulties in successfully adapting QIAGEN's
products to integrated solutions and producing such products, the
ability of QIAGEN to identify and develop new products and to
differentiate its products from competitors' products, market
acceptance of QIAGEN's new products and the integration of acquired
technologies and businesses. For further information, refer to the
discussions in reports that QIAGEN has filed with, or furnished to,
the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
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Qiagen N.V.
Spoorstraat 50 KJ Venlo Netherlands
WKN: 901626; ISIN:
NL0000240000; Index: HDAX, MIDCAP, Prime All Share, TECH All Share,
TecDAX;
Listed: Prime Standard in Frankfurter Wertpapierbörse, Freiverkehr in
Börse Berlin,
Freiverkehr in Börse Düsseldorf, Freiverkehr in Hanseatische
Wertpapierbörse zu Hamburg,
Freiverkehr in Niedersächsische Börse zu Hannover, Freiverkehr in
Bayerische Börse München,
Freiverkehr in Börse Stuttgart;