On August 2, 2023, Pacific Biosciences of California (PacBio), a leading provider of high-quality, long-read sequencing platforms, announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire Apton Biosystems, Inc. (Apton), a Bay-Area-based company developing a high throughput short-read sequencer using state-of-the-art optics and image processing, paired with novel clustering and chemistry, that is designed to enable the sequencing of billions of clusters of DNA on one flow cell. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is representing PacBio in the transaction.

Upon closing of the acquisition, PacBio plans to integrate its Sequencing by Binding (SBB™) short-read chemistry into Apton's high throughput instrument to offer a differentiated high throughput sequencer designed to deliver billions of reads per flow cell.

Under the terms of the acquisition agreement, PacBio provides for upfront consideration of approximately $85 million in an all-stock transaction consisting of approximately 6.3 million shares of PacBio common stock plus an additional $25 million in stock, cash, or a combination of stock and cash payable in connection with the achievement of $50 million in revenue associated with a high throughput sequencer using Apton's technology, for an overall transaction valued up to approximately $110 million.

The Wilson Sonsini team that advised PacBio included:

Corporate
Andrew Hoffman
Zachary Myers
James Babikian
Daniel McCanavan 

M&A
Douglas Schnell
Broderick Henry
David Adler
Sasha Bobrowicz

Technology Transactions
Ian Edvalson
Shefali Tandon

Tax
Myra Sutanto Shen
Anthony Yanez

Regulatory
Eva Yin
Joshua Gruenspecht
Anne Seymour
Seth Cowell
Bryan Poellot

Privacy
Matt Staples
Daniel Chen
Michael O’Brien
Dantam Le

Employment Litigation
Rebecca Stuart
Quinn Christie

Employee Benefits and Compensation
Scott McCall
Jaqueline Tokuda
Jason Chan

Real Estate
James McCann
Matthew Parsons

For more information, please see PacBio’s news release.