Company Announcements

In January, Cellectis announced that it integrated its Ectycell and Cellectis bioresearch segments. Cellectis bioresearch also completed a capital increase of €3.5 million ($4.8 million) from Caisse des Dépôts, which now holds a 24.5% share in Cellectis bioresearch (see IBO 12/15/13).

Biomatrica signed a distribution agreement with Sigma-Aldrich in January.

TGR BioSciences and Innova Biosciences announced a comarketing agreement.

Reaction Biology named Cisbio Biosassays a comarketer and distributor for its recombinant human epigenetic proteins.

In January, Abcam appointed Alan Hirze, chief marketing officer, to its Board.

Abcam opened an office in Shanghai, China, in February.

Under an exclusive commercial supply agreement announced in January, Nexomics Biosciences will provide isotope-labeled protein production services, and Cambridge Isotope Laboratories will provide sales and marketing support.

EpiCypher named tebu-bio a European distributor.

Avacta Life Sciences announced a collaboration with the University of Liverpool to combine its Affimer microarrays of engineered affinity reagents with MS for developing new methods for biomarker and drug target discovery.

In February, Techne announced a new trade name, Bio-Techne, which will bring the company’s R&D Systems, BiosPacific, Tocris Biosciences, Boston Biochem and Bionostics products under one common brand name. The major brand names will be retained but will be aligned to create new divisions.

Product Introductions

BioVision introduced in January the Human CellExp Recombinant Proteins product line.

Life Technologies released the Lipofectamine 3000 transfection reagent for difficult-to-transfect cells.

Sigma-Aldrich Sigma Life Sciences introduced the genetically modified HepaRG human liver cell line, licensed from Biopredic, for hepatotoxicity and drug metabolism assays. Sigma will also offer wild type HepaRG liver cells and supporting media.

In February, Biolin, a Meridian Bioscience company, introduced the SensiFAST cDNA synthesis kit for the generation of real-time ready first strand cDNA from viral RNA and total RNA.

Horizon Discovery launched the GENASSIST range of gene editing kits and reagents for easier, robust implementation of CRISPR and rAAV gene editing. A new kit allows customers to generate their own CRISPR-ready cell lines that constitutively express Cas9-nickase. The company also launched new services for gene editing.