QIAGEN Completes Exchange Offer for Digene Corporation
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Anticipates Prompt Completion of Acquisition
VENLO, Netherlands, July 26 /-- QIAGEN N.V. (Nasdaq: QGEN; Frankfurt, Prime Standard: QIA) today announced that it has successfully completed its exchange offer for all outstanding shares of common stock of Digene Corporation (NASDAQ:DIGE). The exchange offer expired at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday, July 20, 2007. At the time the exchange offer closed, 23,270,298 shares, representing approximately 94.6%, of Digene's outstanding common stock, had been tendered.
Digene stockholders elected to receive QIAGEN ordinary shares in exchange for approximately 90% of the Digene shares tendered, and therefore proration of Digene common stock elections will be required. QIAGEN will announce the proration calculations when completed and, in any event, on or before Thursday, August 2, 2007.
QIAGEN expects to complete its acquisition of Digene on Monday, July 30, 2007 through a short-form merger under Delaware law. In the short form merger, QIAGEN will acquire all other Digene shares at the same price and with the same election procedure (other than for those shares as to which holders properly exercise appraisal rights) offered in the exchange offer. QIAGEN will be able to effect this merger without a meeting of Digene stockholders. Stockholders who continue to hold Digene shares at the time of the merger and who fulfill certain other requirements of Delaware law will have appraisal rights in connection with the merger. At the completion of the merger, Digene will become a wholly owned subsidiary of QIAGEN's affiliate QIAGEN North American Holdings, Inc.
"We are rapidly advancing towards closing this transaction and are very pleased with the speed and results of this process," said Peer M. Schatz, QIAGEN's Chief Executive Officer.
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 as 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 2,000 people worldwide. QIAGEN products are sold through a dedicated sales force and a global network of distributors in more than 40 countries. In this press release QIAGEN is using the term molecular diagnostics. The use of this term is in reference to certain countries, such as the United States, limited to products subject to regulatory requirements. Current QIAGEN molecular diagnostics products are 34 EU CE IVD assays, six EU CE IVD sample preparation products, one 510k PAX RNA product, nine China SFDA IVD assays and 98 general purpose reagents. Further information about QIAGEN can be found at www.qiagen.com.
FCMN Contact: mrepko@joelefrank.com
Source: QIAGEN N.V.
CONTACT: Investors, Dr. Solveigh Mahler, +011-49-2103-29-11710; or Media, Dr. Thomas Theuringer, +011-49-2103-29-11826, both of QIAGEN
Web site: www.qiagen.com/
