Extending Disposable Technologies Market Leadership In Life Sciences

Danbury, CT - ATMI, Inc. announced it has acquired LevTech, Inc., a market-leading provider of disposable mixing technologies to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries in a $27 million cash transaction.

Based in Lexington, Kentucky, LevTech will be combined with ATMI's existing LifeSciences business focused on single-use bioprocess containers and processes for the biopharmaceutical industry.

"The addition of LevTech's innovative products, intellectual property, and market share puts ATMI's LifeSciences business in a preeminent position for single-use manufacturing applications in the biopharmaceutical market," said Doug Neugold, ATMI Chief Executive Officer. "This transaction is indicative of our intent to focus on providing process efficiency solutions to this market as another source of significant growth for ATMI."

"ATMI's experience in single-use flexible process containers is unparalleled," said Mario Philips, General Manager of ATMI LifeSciences. "We've supplied the semiconductor industry with ultra-high purity single-use containers since 1987, and, since 1999, growing customer demand has led us to extend our expertise to the biopharmaceutical industry. This acquisition supports our strategy to become the global leader in comprehensive disposable systems for the biopharmaceutical industry with a broad range of proprietary disposable storage, mixing, and bioreactor technologies."

"LevTech has successfully developed proprietary mixing technologies to enable critical processes in the fast-emerging singleuse biopharmaceutical manufacturing market," said Jeffery Craig, LevTech Chairman. "We have secured a leading global position by providing our customers with validated and sustainable cost, capacity, contamination, and time-to-market advantages. Combining LevTech's patent-protected biomanufacturing products with ATMI's ultra-clean technology experience, single-use container manufacturing capacity, and global infrastructure will create what we believe will be the worldwide market leader in the single-use bioprocessing arena."

"We expect this deal to be accretive by late 2008 as expected revenue growth and operating synergies offset anticipated intangible asset amortization and lower interest income," said Tim Carlson, ATMI Chief Financial Officer. "We expect slight near-term EPS dilution of $0.01 - $0.02 per quarter as we integrate the acquisition during the year."

SOURCE: ATMI LifeSciences