Beckman Coulter Acquires Blue Ocean Medical

Brea, Calif.-based Beckman Coulter Life Sciences has acquired Blue Ocean Medical LLC, a Pembroke Pines, Fla.-based manufacturer of automated flow cytometry systems and reagents. Beckman Coulter manufactures technologies for biomedical testing, and this transaction will provide the company with low-complexity analyzers that integrate automated sample preparation and directly address emerging flow cytometry market trends.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Flow cytometry systems are used to measure and examine microscopic particle—such as cells or chromosomes—suspended in a fluid as it flows by an electronic detection device.

Beckman Coulter already has a cytometry portfolio, which Blue Ocean Medical will now add to. Blue Ocean brings with it instruments based on a “sample in, result out” approach that represents a fundamental change in the routine clinical analysis sector.

“This acquisition provides both immediate opportunity and long-term value,” said Scott Atkin, president of Beckman Coulter. “The simplification of customer workflows will be dramatic. We’ll be able to offer customers an extended line of market leading technology while expanding our reach within a key segment for flow cytometry.”

Mike Brochu, CEO and co-founder of Blue Ocean Biomedical, said his team has developed a line of “truly unique instrument systems—essentially, the world’s first ‘load and go’ flow cytometers,” adding that Beckman Coulter has “all the resources and technology needed to build on this platform and future systems for years to come.”

Beckman Coulter was founded in 1935 with sale of the first commercial pH meter by founder Arnold O. Beckman, Ph.D. The company produces a variety of devices and technologies used to study complex biological problems including causes of disease and potential new therapies or drugs.

Also a distributor and consulting firm, Blue Ocean Medical is focused on medical devices and technology in the aesthetic sector.