NEW YORK (360Dx) – Bruker today announced it has completed its acquisition of antibiotic-resistance and -susceptibility testing firm Merlin for an undisclosed amount.
Merlin, based in Bonn, Germany, will become Bruker's Center of Excellence for specialty biochemical and certain high-value MALDI Biotyper-based antibiotic-resistance and -susceptibility testing. The addition of Merlin expands Bruker's microbiology business, based on its MALDI Biotyper platform, Bruker said.
Merlin's technology is based on the phenotyping detection of microbial growth inhibition in the presence of antibiotics, with a focus on major resistance phenotypes, such as MRSA, VRE, MBL, ESBL, KPC, AMP-C, and OXA-48. The company can also customize antibiograms for more than 200 antibiotics. Its Micronaut system allows labs to adjust their testing profiles to the spread of new resistances, and the Micronaut software has offered an interface for the MALDI Biotyper for several years, Bruker said.
"Over time, we expect Merlin will further expand our selected, high-value ART and AST assay portfolio for the MALDI Biotyper," Wolfgang Pusch, executive vice president for microbiology and diagnostics at Bruker Daltonics, said in a statement.