Laboratory Automation
Company Announcements
In December 2011, BioTek Instruments dismissed its suit against Molecular Devices (see IBO 10/31/11).
BioTek Instruments announced in January the establishment of a second Chinese office in Shanghai.
In January, BioTek Instruments opened a French subsidiary in Colmar. Serlabo Technologies will provide service, maintenance and qualification for its products.
In January, Tecan announced an OEM agreement to supply instruments, based on its Freedom EVO liquid handling platform, for sample preparation of Waters’s clinical laboratory assays.
TTP Labtech promoted Jas Sangera, commercial director, to managing director in April.
Brooks Life Science Systems and the Scripps Research Institute partnered in February to develop, under an exclusive licensing agreement, the Brooks Plate Auditor microplate-imaging system for the automated assessment of compound quality in plate-based screening libraries.
In April, Tecan appointed Karen Huebscher, managing director of FibulaMedical, to its Board, replacing Dr. Lukas Braunschweiler.
Frederic Vanderhaegen, head of Tecan’s Life Sciences Business, will leave the company no later than November to take a position with Beckman Coulter Life Sciences.
CyBio announced in April that it expects fiscal 2012 sales to be flat at €11.0–€11.5 million ($14.5–$15 million).
In April, Trinean named Philippe Stas, former CEO of Algonomics, CEO and secured €2.7 million ($3.6 million) in new financing.
Product Introductions
Gilson released its TRILUTION LH 3.0 software for liquid handling, solid phase extraction and new automation applications, featuring scheduling capabilities for time-critical methods.
Tecan and Artel partnered to introduce a QC kit for the Freedom EVO liquid handling workstations. Tecan markets the kit.
Molecular Devices introduced the QPix 400 series microbial colony pickers, which consists of the QPix 460 and 450 systems and, later this year, the 400 system. The systems feature the option to simultaneously detect colonies and quantify fluorescent markers.
In March, HighRes Biosolutions launched the ACell benchtop lab automation system, which is small enough for typical benchtop integrations and flexible enough for larger integrations on existing or new custom tables.
SCIENION released the sciREADER CL for colorimetric detection of multiplex assays in planar array formats.
Aurora Instruments launched the affordable VERSA 10 Automated Liquid Handling Workstation, which combines automated multichannel dispensing with single-channel, cherry-picking functionality.