On August 2, 2023, Pacific Biosciences of California (PacBio), a leading provider of high-quality, long-read sequencing platforms, announced that it has signed a definitive merger agreement to acquire Apton Biosystems, Inc. (Apton), a Bay-Area-based company developing a high throughput short-read sequencer using state-of-the-art optics and image processing, paired with novel clustering and chemistry, that is designed to enable the sequencing of billions of clusters of DNA on one flow cell. Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati is representing PacBio in the transaction. Wilson Sonsini advised Apton Biosciences on patent matters related to the transaction.

Upon closing of the acquisition, PacBio plans to integrate its Sequencing by Binding (SBB™) short-read chemistry into Apton's high throughput instrument to offer a differentiated high throughput sequencer designed to deliver billions of reads per flow cell.

The Wilson Sonsini team that advised Apton on patent matters included Maysam Pessian, Ali Alemozafar, Vern Norviel, Stephen Olshemski, and Emon Heidari.

For more information, please see PacBio’s news release.