Becton Dickinson and Company Acquires Transduction Laboratories/GLENTECH, Inc.

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 4, 1998--Becton Dickinson and Company (NYSE:BDX) announced the acquisition of GLENTECH, Inc. d/b/a Transduction Laboratories, a Lexington, Ky.-based developer of products for biomedical research.

Transduction Laboratories is a leader in developing reagents, primarily in the field of signal transduction, for biomedical research. The company of 40 employees markets more than 500 individual products.

Deborah Neff, President of Becton Dickinson Immunocytometry Systems headquartered in San Jose, Calif., said, "The acquisition of Transduction Laboratories is part of our strategy to provide a more comprehensive product offering to our research customers and increase our growth rate."

The acquisition is being made through Becton Dickinson's wholly owned subsidiary, PharMingen (San Diego). PharMingen develops, manufactures and sells reagents for life science research. Headquartered in San Diego, the company of 320 employees was acquired by Becton Dickinson in May 1997.

By joining forces with PharMingen, Transduction Laboratories is better positioned to broaden its customer base by leveraging Becton Dickinson's worldwide distribution system while continuing rapid commercialization of quality products, said John Glenney, PhD, founder and President of Transduction Laboratories.

Becton Dickinson and Company manufactures and sells a broad range of medical supplies and devices and diagnostic systems for use by health care professionals, medical research institutions and the general public. For the fiscal year ended September 30, 1998, Becton Dickinson had total operating revenues of $3.117 billion and net income of $237 million.