Konica Minolta, With Eye on Health Care, Nears Deal for US Genetics Firm – New York Times

An announcement is expected on Thursday, and the companies hope to complete the transaction by the end of the year. Ambry Genetics declined to comment.

The Japanese government is helping to drive the diversification efforts. A state-backed investment fund, the Innovation Network Corporation of Japan, is teaming up with Konica Minolta in the Ambry acquisition. According to the people familiar with the deal, Konica Minolta would take a 60 percent share in Ambry, with the rest to be acquired by the fund.

Ambry, which is privately held, would retain its current leadership, these people said. The management team includes the company founder and chairman, Charles L. M. Dunlop, who has said his own experience with prostate cancer now in remission influenced his decision to make public anonymized information from Ambrys database.

Pooling data from many people is considered crucial to finding genetic elements that contribute to illnesses.

For Konica Minolta, the acquisition would confirm the acceleration of efforts to diversify beyond photocopiers and printers, areas where revenue and profit have been shrinking.

The Japanese company has identified health care, and cancer screening in particular, as a possible mainstay of business. It has been developing its own cancer-detecting technology using light-emitting nanoparticles to mark proteins that are drawn to cancer cells.

Other Japanese businesses have tried similar expansions. Fujifilm, for instance which, like Konica Minolta, built a name decades ago in photography has established a profitable health care and cosmetics division, helping it survive the end of the analog film era.

Other Japanese groups health care ventures have been less successful, however.

Follow Jonathan Soble on Twitter @jonathan_soble.

Chad Bray contributed reporting from London.

A version of this article appears in print on July 6, 2017, on Page B4 of the New York edition with the headline: Konica Minolta Nears Genetics Deal.

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Konica Minolta, With Eye on Health Care, Nears Deal for US Genetics Firm - New York Times