Molecular and point-of-care diagnostics company Nanogen (San Diego, Calif.) has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and entered a deal to sell its assets, the company announced yesterday.

Lacking the cash required to continue running its business, Nanogen has agreed to sell nearly all of its assets to diagnostics company The Elitech Group (Paris, France) for $25.7 million. The sale is subject to customary closing conditions as well as the approval of the bankruptcy court and an auction process in which the company may seek competing bids to achieve the highest price for its assets.

Founded in 1993, Nanogen has focused on developing, manufacturing, and selling molecular testing platforms, analyte-specific reagents, point-of-care diagnostic tests, and real-time polymerase chain reaction (PCR) reagents. The company went public in 1998.

According to its Chapter 11 filing, Nanogen had assets of $14.7 million and debts of $41.5 million as of March 27. According to its March announcement of preliminary, unaudited financial results,

For more on this story, see the June issue of Diagnostic Testing and Technology Report.