Company Announcements

QIAGEN announced in fall 2016 a partnership with Hamilton Robotics to provide high-throughput solutions for human ID databases. The workflow solution includes QIAGEN’s Investigator STR GO! Kits, STAR Q instrument and Quality Sensor.

In March, Hamilton Robotics announced an ongoing collaboration with Zymo Research for high-throughput epigenetics research. A number of Zymo Research’s assay chemistries are now optimized for use on Hamilton’s automated liquid handling workstations.

TECAN appointed Klaus Lun, head of Corporate Development and a member of the Management Board, as head of the Life Sciences Business division, effective February 1. He replaces Dr. Stefan Traeger who left the company to become CEO of integrated photonics company Jenoptik. A search for a successor to Dr. Traeger has been initiated.

Brooks Automation announced in its fiscal first quarter conference call that the final value of the Cool Lab acquisition (see IBO 11/30/16) was $15.2 million, of which $14.6 million was for goodwill and amortizable intangibles.

In March, Analytik Jena and Illumina agreed to comarket their respective CyBio FeliX platform and 96-sample Infinium XT BeadChip for ultra-high-throughput genotyping. The agreement is a codevelopment and comarketing partnership for automated sample preparation for Infinium XT UHT protocols.

BioTek Instruments announced in March the opening of a third location in China in Guangzhou. The site houses sales, service and applications support for South China.

Product Introductions

In February, Brooks Life Science Systems launched the FluidX IntelliXcap capper and decapper, calling it the industry’s only 96-format full rack system to feature an interchangeable cartridge and an advanced storage media detection sensor for managing multiple tube tubes. A rack of tubes can be decapped in as little as 20 seconds.

In February, Molecular Devices introduced the new SpectraMax iD3 Multi-Mode Microplate Reader. It allows you to run multiple instruments from one workstation using network connectivity.