Company Announcements

As part of its restructuring of RTS Life Science, Entologi has formed the Vision Technology Business Unit, which will focus on products for manufacturing, lab and warehouse applications.

Tecan and Sword Diagnostics announced in January the availability of Sword’s detection reagents in the US for use with Tecan’s Infinite M1000 and 200 PRO series plate readers. Sword’s technology utilizes a unique substrate that generates a light-scattering, energy exchanged (Raman) signal.

In January, Caliper Life Sciences announced a long-term, exclusive distribution agreement for North America for Trinean’s DropSense UV/Vis plate reader, which will be sold under the name LabChip DS.

The Automation Partnership named two new distributors: Applikon Biotechnology for the Netherlands and Labtech for France.

BioTek Instruments is establishing a South Korean office, which will be fully functional by July 1.

BioTek Instruments reported that 2010 sales for its lab component business grew 19% domestically and 16% internationally.

Product Introductions

The Automation Partnership launched the CellBase CT system for the automation of ex vivo expansion of autologous cell therapies. It can be used for rapid scale up of existing manual cell culture processes in T-flasks.

The Automation Partnership released the Fill-It 48-way benchtop automated dispensing system for the dispensing of up to 5 mL in an aseptic environment into Nunc’s preloaded 48-way racks of 2D-barcoded 2.0 and 5.0 mL vials.

Hamilton Robotics integrated Peak Robotics’s KiNEDx robot series with its MICROLAB STAR liquid handling workstation. The KiNEDx 4- and 5-axis robots increase access to microplate samples and third-party devices.

Hach Lange introduced the AP3800 lab robot for unattended multiple parameter analysis of up to 24 samples. It automates steps such as dilution, reagent addition, mixing and digestion.

Tecan launched the Cavro Air Displacement Pipettor, a compact, pneumatic pipetting module for 1–1,000 µL volumes. It is the first Tecan Cavro product to utilize pneumatic technology.

Tecan and SciRobotics launched the integrated Pickolo colony picker for the Freedom EVO liquid handling platforms for automation of molecular biology workflows, with automated picking of up to 800 colonies an hour.

BioMicroLab released the XL20 LevelCheck module for scanning and reporting tube sample volume. BioMicroLab also added liquid handling to its XL2100 Vial Handling Instrument with the integration of a second z-axis and the Biohit rLine 200 µL pipette.