Company Announcements

Biomatrica launched Biomatrica Connect, a solution-centric partnership program with industry and academia for ambient room temperature storage and management of nucleic acids. Industry members include BioStorage Technologies, Matrical Biosciences and NEXUS Biosystems.

BioTek Instruments named Dr. Dirk Frese as managing director, Europe, in July. He was previously director and global category manager for Analytical Technologies at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

BioTek Instruments announced in September that its Hybrid Microplate Reader family received HTRF certification from Cisbio Bioassays.

HighRes Biosolutions named Tekon Biotech as its exclusive distributor for China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

CyBio AG’s fiscal 2010 first-half sales declined to €5.9 million ($7.8 million) and profits totaled €124,000 ($163,158). The company expects full-year revenues of €10–€11 million ($13–$14 million).

RTS Life Science announced in September the formation of a Pharmaceutical Testing Group for analytical development, quality control, dose content uniformity and dissolution-testing systems.

Product Introductions

Astech Projects released the X Series of products for automated inhaler testing. The Xelair is for testing the dose content uniformity of the emitted dose. The Xelize is for particle size determination in conjuction with the Andersen Cascade Impactor, and the Xelox is for particle size determination with the next-generation impactor.

Thermo Fisher Scientific launched the Thermo Scientific Wellwash and Wellwash Versa strip washers.

TTP LabTech introduced the mosquito LCP liquid handler, a dedicated liquid handler designed to facilitate the crystallization of membrane proteins by offering a fully automated solution to lipid cubic phase screening.

BioTek Instruments launched the monochromator-based Synergy H1 Hybird Multi-Mode Microplate Reader for UV-Vis absorbance, top and bottom fluorescence, and luminescence assays.

BioTek Instruments released the MultiFlo Microplate Dispenser, which dispenses up to four independent, parallel reagents in volumes from 1 µL to 3 mL.

For users of its detection systems, Tecan introduced TeCare Check, which offers onsite operational qualification of instruments, and TeCare Depot Repair, which offers a cost-efficient repair service at a Tecan technical center.

BMG Labtech released the SPECTROstar Nano absorbance microplate reader with cuvette port. It can capture a full UV-Visible spectrum of 220–1000 nm in less than 1 sec/well and can measure volumes down to 2 µm.

Silicon Kinetics launched the SKi Pro X1000 biosensor array reader, based on nanopore optical interferometry, for multiwell plate and flow cell formats.