Sigma-Aldrich Acquires Cerilliant Corporation to Strengthen its Analytical Chemistry Portfolio

ST. LOUIS, Dec. 30, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Sigma-Aldrich® Corporation (Nasdaq: SIAL) announced today it has acquired all outstanding shares of Cerilliant Corporation of Round Rock, Texas to strengthen the Company's analytical chemistry product portfolio and to continue to deliver on its strategic growth plans. Cerilliant, a leading supplier of high quality reference standards and materials, provides products that support the clinical diagnostics, environmental, nutraceutical, pharmaceutical, forensic and clinical toxicology markets. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed. The Company expects this acquisition to be neutral to mildly accretive to earnings per share in 2011. Cerilliant has been a portfolio company of Argenta Partners of Dallas, Texas for the past 10 years.  

Cerilliant brings to Sigma-Aldrich over 2,800 products and more than 30 years of expertise in the design, development, synthesis, characterization and packaging of analytical standards, calibrators, controls and certified reference materials that are used in a wide range of analytical applications. The standards company is well known for its visionary approach to serving these growing industries with a continually expanding line of innovative new products and sustains a modern, robust quality system which incorporates cGMP, GLP and ISO requirements. Cerilliant is accredited to ISO Guide 34, ISO/IEC 17025 and is certified to ISO 9001:2008. Its extensive capabilities complement Sigma-Aldrich's existing Fluka® and Supelco® analytical brands and will expand the Company's analytical customer base and markets. Cerilliant employs 65 people at its state-of-the-art laboratory and manufacturing facility in Round Rock, Texas. Its website can be accessed at www.cerilliant.com.

"Cerilliant's strong product suite and solid relationships with customers and analytical equipment suppliers will bring important new business opportunities to our Company's analytical arena," commented Russel Gant, Vice President of the Analytical Research business at Sigma-Aldrich. "Their experienced team and capabilities, combined with the quality and breadth of our current analytical brands, our broad scientific knowledge and our powerful global footprint will provide analytical customers around the globe with access to a broad and ever-increasing range of specialized, high-quality analytical standards from a convenient and reliable single source."

Sherri Pogue, President of Cerilliant and newly appointed Director of the Round Rock site, added, "Being part of the Sigma-Aldrich family will provide Cerilliant with the depth and breadth of resources that will allow us to continue to expand our development and offering of innovative products to support our customers' ever-evolving analytical requirements. We remain committed to providing our customers with unsurpassed quality and service."

Cautionary statement: The foregoing release contains forward-looking statements that can be identified by terminology such as "strengthens," "expands," "is expected to," "continue to deliver," "will become," "will provide," "will bring," "expects this acquisition to be neutral to mildly accretive to earnings per share in 2011," or similar expressions, or by expressed or implied discussions regarding potential future revenues from products derived therefrom. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Such forward-looking statements reflect the current views of management regarding future events, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause actual results to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by such statements. There can be no guarantee that the acquisition of Cerilliant will achieve any particular levels of revenue in the future. In particular, management's expectations regarding the acquisition of Cerilliant could be affected by, among other things, unexpected regulatory actions or delays or government regulation generally; the Company's ability to obtain or maintain patent or other proprietary intellectual property protection; competition in general; government, industry and general public pricing pressures; the impact that the foregoing factors could have on the values attributed to the Company's assets and liabilities as recorded in its consolidated balance sheet, and other risks and factors referred to in Sigma-Aldrich's current Form 10-K on file with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially from those anticipated, believed, estimated or expected. Sigma-Aldrich is providing the information in this press release as of this date and does not undertake any obligation to update any forward-looking statements contained in this press release as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

About Sigma-Aldrich: Sigma-Aldrich is a leading Life Science and High Technology company committed to Enabling Science to Improve the Quality of Life. Its chemical and biochemical products and kits are used in scientific research, including genomic and proteomic research, biotechnology, pharmaceutical development and as key components in pharmaceutical, diagnostic and other high technology manufacturing. The Company has customers in life science companies, university and government institutions, hospitals, and in industry. Over one million scientists and technologists use its products. Sigma-Aldrich operates in 40 countries and has 7,700 employees providing excellent service worldwide. For more information about Sigma-Aldrich, please visit its award-winning Web site at http://www.sigma-aldrich.com.

Sigma-Aldrich, Fluka and Supelco are registered trademarks of Sigma-Aldrich Biotechnology L.P. and Sigma-Aldrich Co.

SOURCE Sigma-Aldrich Corporation