Waters Tanks on Halo Purchase

Waters Corporation (NYSE:WAT) shares lost ground Wednesday, on the announcement that it has acquired Halo Labs™, an innovator of specialized imaging technologies to detect, identify, and count interfering materials (particles) in therapeutic products, such as cell, protein, and gene therapies.This morning’s news release reported that the Aura™ platform from Halo Labs features a highly differentiated technology that performs full spectrum particle analysis and is complementary to the Waters light scattering detection solutions from its Wyatt Technology Portfolio. For example, its subvisible particle technology unlocks additional insights when characterizing external particles used to amplify CAR T-cells for cell therapy, detecting these translucent process impurities that are currently undetectable by standard methods. By acquiring this innovative company, Waters will be able to integrate this emerging technology into new and existing large molecule development and QA/QC, giving a key value-add to customers while accelerating the Company's growth into analytical and bioprocessing testing for large molecule therapies."Adding the innovative low-sample-volume, high-throughput technology from Halo Labs provides analysis for a broad range of sample types and volumes, enabling earlier insights during therapy development and greater safety during manufacturing," said CEO Dr. Udit Batra. "With the rapid growth of treatments like CAR T-cell therapies, we are investing in the innovation our customers need. Together with our existing Wyatt Technology product lines, this acquisition enhances our leadership position in specialized analytical technologies for emerging biopharma therapies."WAT shares slipped $8.72, or 2.4%, to $353.38.