Company Announcements

The Automation Partnership changed its name to TAP Biosystems in March.

In March, Tecan entered into an agreement to commercialize products based on HP’s inkjet-dispensing technology for pharmaceutical drug discovery. The digital drug titration device enables the fast delivery of picoliter to microliter sample volumes. Tecan will provide exclusive sales, marketing, service and support, and the products will be sold under the HP brand.

In April, Tecan named Dr. Oliver S. Fetzer, president and CEO of Cerulean Pharma, and Erik Walldén, CEO of Gyros, as new Board members, replacing Dr. Jürg Meier and Dr. Peter Ryser.

SOTAX announced in April the opening of an Indian subsidiary in Mumbai. The operation initially plans to focus on the more than 200 pharmaceutical manufacturing and R&D locations in the country with SOTAX systems.

Distek formed a Certified Pre-Owned Program for its systems.

In April, Biochrom opened an Indian liaison office. The office will also represent products from other Harvard Bioscience companies.

CyBio’s half-year sales ending March 31 grew 4.8% to €6.2 million ($8.4 million). EBIT rose 150.0% to €1.0 million ($1.4 million). Instruments, service and consumables made up 53%, 21% and 26% of revenues, respectively. For fiscal 2011, the company expects sales of €10.5–€11.5 million ($14.3–$15.6 million).

In May, Titertek Instruments and Berthold Detection Systems merged to form Titertek-Berthold. The companies retained their respective sites in Huntsville, Alabama, and Pforzheim, Germany.

Company Announcements

TAP Biosystems introduced a 96-well version of its RAFT (Real Architecture for 3D Tissue) system for the generation of multicellular three-dimensional tissue models.

Labcyte released a new 1536-well tissue culture–treated microplate for cell-based screening and discovery.

Biohit launched the Roboline, a cost-effective and compact automated liquid handling instrument that is particularly suited to low- or medium-throughput labs.

Tecan introduced the updated M1000 high-end multimode microplate reader. New features include luminescence scanning, a new injector module and the ability to use Tecan NanoQuant Plates.

TAP Biosystems released the CompacT SC automated T-flash cell culture system designed to fully control expansion, differentiation and maintenance of stem cells.

BioTek Instruments introduced the ELx405 Select Deep Well Washer for automated aspirate and dispense steps.

Hamamatsu Photonics launched the FDSS7000EX Functional Drug Screening System, an imaging-based plate reader for fluorescence and luminescence.