Measurement company Agilent Technologies (Santa Clara, Calif.) has sold its clinical diagnostics business to Linden (Chicago), a private equity firm focused on the healthcare and life science industries. Acquired by Agilent as part of its 2007 purchase of Stratagene, Hycor Biomedical develops, manufactures, and markets in vitro diagnostic products for the global allergy testing, autoimmune testing, and urinalysis markets. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“Hycor is an innovative, profitable, and growing business, but it does not fit the core focus of our life science business,” said Nick Roelofs, president of Agilent’s life sciences group, which includes microarrays, microfluidics, and laboratory automation. The group accounted for $969 million of the $4.5 billion in revenue that Agilent reported for the fiscal year that ended Oct. 31, 2009. Agilent’s life sciences revenue was down 5 percent in 2009 as compared to 2008, with modest growth in the academic and government markets but weakness in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology markets.

Hycor was founded in 1981 and is based in Garden Grove, Calif. Among its products are tests marketed under the Hytec, Kova, and Autostat brands. The company’s fully automated Hytec immunoassay platform can perform allergy and autoimmune antibody testing as well user-defined enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs), while the Hycor ultrasensitive enzyme immunoassay system has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration for quantitative determination of specific Immunoglobulin E.

Linden operating partner Richard Novak has been appointed chairman of Hycor. Novak previously served as chief operating officer of LabCorp. “The Hycor platform is well-positioned to compete in the high-growth segments of in vitro diagnostics for allergy and autoimmune testing,” said Novak, who added that the company’s urinalysis products offer a platform for international expansion.