A Medical Device Daily

Qiagen (Venlo, the Netherlands) and Idaho Technology (Salt Lake City) reported reaching a settlement agreement for rights to a suite of intellectual property relating to Corbett Life Science's (Sidney, Australia) Rotor-Gene instruments. The settlement preceded Qiagen's acquisition of Corbett, which was disclosed Friday. Financial terms were not disclosed.

The agreement covers Idaho Technology patents surrounding rapid polymerase chain reaction methods and instrumentation, the use of SYBR Green I in PCR reactions, melting curve analysis (rights obtained through Roche Diagnostics [Basel, Switzerland]), analysis methods of DNA melting data, specifically high resolution melting (HRM), and others.

The companies also agreed to jointly file a stipulation of dismissal with prejudice with the District Court in Salt Lake City to end the pending legal proceedings.

The settlement follows Idaho Technology's January 2007 settlement with Cepheid (Sunnyvale, California) involving similar intellectual property and extends Idaho Technology's program, the company noted.

"We are pleased with this settlement which was a condition for our transaction with Corbett and which provides customers of Corbett cyclers and Qiagen the key freedom to operate elements required to develop, market and operate performance leading real-time PCR detection technologies based on Corbett's innovative Rotor-Gene solutions," said Peer Schatz, CEO of Qiagen.

"Idaho Technology is a company built on innovation; we are pleased to have reached a settlement with Qiagen/Corbett and we look forward to working with Qiagen. Protecting our intellectual property will continue to be exceedingly important to our business," said Randy Rasmussen, president of Idaho Technology.