Bio-Rad Laboratories (NYSE:BIO) said yesterday that it inked a definitive agreement to acquire RainDance Technologies for an undisclosed amount. The Hercules, Calif.-based company said it expects the transaction to close in the 1st quarter of 2017 and that it will reveal the terms of the acquisition when it discusses its 4th quarter and full-year financial results for 2016.

Billerica, Mass.-based RainDance Technologies’ intellectual property and product portfolio include technologies to simplify genetic analysis of biological reactions in droplets.

The company’s tools aim to enhance the way researchers study cell-based and cell-free biomarkers in cancer and infectious disease, according to RainDance’s website.

The RainDrop Plus Digital PCR system generates millions of droplets of a sample for digital PCR, which is used in applications such as copy number variation, expression analysis and the detection of rare mutants that necessitate high sensitivity. To achieve high sensitivity, the system produces millions of droplets, increasing the probability that the system will detect an analyte.

“We are pleased to have RainDance join Bio-Rad,” Bio-Rad president & CEO Norman Schwartz said in prepared remarks. “The company’s droplet-based solutions will extend our reach into next-generation sequencing applications and strengthen our position in the area of droplet digital PCR. We look forward to expanding our offering to provide life science and clinical diagnostics customers with solutions for a wide range of nucleic acid detection applications.”