New Delhi, June 26 -- MINNEAPOLIS - For nearly a decade, Merck KGaA has been looking for a way to remake itself into something more than a chemicals company that happens to sell cancer drugs. The answer it settled on Thursday involves $11.3 billion, a Minneapolis life-sciences toolmaker, and a bet that the most durable position in the next generation of medicine belongs not to whoever discovers the cures but to whoever builds the instruments scientists use to find them.

The German company said it had agreed to acquire Bio-Techne Corporation, which trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker TECH, in an all-cash deal worth $73 per share, Bloomberg reported. That figure represents a 36 percent premium to Bio-Techne's one-month average trading pr...