Exclusive: Thermo bids for Life Tech; PE firms finalizing offer – sources

By Greg Roumeliotis and Soyoung Kim NEW YORK (Reuters) – Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc made a binding offer for Life Technologies Corp on Tuesday as private equity firms raced to finalize a consortium to take the genetic testing equipment maker private, several people familiar with the matter said. Life Tech, with a current market value of more than $11 billion, has become an attractive target due to its strength in advanced diagnostics and gene sequencing and if Thermo Fisher were to prevail, the deal would make it a major player in the genetic sequencing market. …