Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc made a binding offer for Life Technologies Corp on Tuesday as private equity firms raced to finalize a consortium to take the genetic testing equipment maker private, several people familiar with the matter said.
Life Tech, with a current market value of more than $11 billion, has become an attractive target due to its strength in advanced diagnostics and gene sequencing and if Thermo Fisher were to prevail, the deal would make it a major player in the genetic sequencing market.
It would be also be by far its biggest deal since the $12.8 billion merger in 2006 of Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific International that created the world’s largest maker of scientific equipment and laboratory instruments.
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