Company Announcements

Nature reported in May that antibody supplier Santa Cruz Biotechnology had agreed to pay $3.5 million for the violation of the US Animal Welfare Act. The settlement also cancels the company’s license to sell, buy or import animals and its registration to operate as an animal research facility.

DefiniGEN, a provider of stem cell life science products, raised $2.29 million in follow-on funding. The round was led by Cambridge Enterprise and 24 Haymarket.

Evercyte and VTU Technology entered into a collaboration agreement to develop recombinant media supplements for cell culture applications. Their first product, Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor 165, was recently launched.

In May, Olink Proteomics, provider of the Proseek Multiplex platform for protein biomarker discovery, opened a new location in Watertown, Massachusetts, its first major regional organization outside of Sweden.

Xconomy.com reported that StemBioSys, a provider of stem cell matrix products, signed a three-year distribution agreement, its first distribution agreement, with Funakoshi for Japan. In July, StemBioSys signed a three-year distribution agreement with SeouLin Bioscience for South Korea.

In June, Twist Bioscience partnered with Desktop Genetics to provide integrated experiment design and DNA synthesis tools to expedite gene editing research. Desktop will provide computationally designed sgRNA libraries for CRISPR gene editing application in any cell line. The guide libraries will be synthesized and shipped by Twist Bioscience.

ERS Genomics, a provider of licenses for CRISPR-Cas9 technologies, named Eric Rhodes as CEO. He previously served as senior vice president of R&D and CTO at Horizon Discovery.

Product Introductions

In May, Neogen launched six tests for the detection of veterinary drug residues in food, specifically sulfonamides, tetracyclines, gentamicin, neomycin, fluoroquinolone and tylosin.

Molecular Devices introduced XP Media and CloneMedia for mouse hybridoma generation. It is a complete solution that supports all stages of hybridoma cell line development.

AMSBIO released the MitoXpress Intra intracellular oxygen assay based on a 96- or 384-well fluorescence plate reader–based approach for the real time assessment of transient changes in cell respiration, oxygen gradients and physiological responses across a range of cell models.

In June, Genovis launched the FabULOUS Fab kit for customers who work with antibodies from mice.

Advanced Analytical introduced the Genomic DNA 50 Kb Analysis Kit, which can size smears through 60 Kb.