LGC announced today that it has acquired SeraCare Life Sciences, a provider of quality control materials for the infectious disease testing and next-generation sequencing markets.

According to LGC, the acquisition strengthens the firm's position across the clinical quality control tools market and expands its calibration verification materials and proficiency testing offerings.

SeraCare offers tools for diagnosing infectious diseases through its ACCURUN reagents, as well as the NGS markets through its Seraseq brand of products for oncology, NIPT, and inherited disease testing. The firm's global customer base includes in vitro diagnostic assay developers and manufacturers, clinical laboratories, pharmaceutical companies, and proficiency providers.

In addition, LGC noted that the Seraseq clinical genomics tools are complementary to its component offerings to the NGS market, which includes oligonucleotides, molecular biology enzymes, and magnetic beads.

"The team will be a natural fit and addition to our existing calibration verification business," LGC Standards Division Managing Director Euan O'Sullivan said in a statement. "This significant acquisition will also strengthen our presence in the fast-growing molecular diagnostics and NGS reference materials market, complementing our genomics offering."

Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

LGC has acquired a slew of genomic tools companies in the last few years ¡ª including Berry and Associates, Bioautomation, Lucigen, and Douglas Scientific ¡ª and is now rebranding its genomics divisions as LGC Biosearch Technologies.