Company Announcements

In June, Molecular Devices filed suit against BioTek Instruments in Massachusetts District Court, alleging that the company published and disseminated product comparison materials that were false and misleading. In its answer, BioTek denied the allegations and counterclaimed the same allegations against Molecular Devices.

Douglas Scientific announced it June that HighRes Biosolutions will integrate its AmbiStore plate handling and storage system into the Array Tape platform.

In July, Tecan named Dr. Martin Brusdeilins chief scientific officer and member of the Group Management Board, as of September 1. He heads the new Science & Technology organization unit. He was previously vice president of Product Development at Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics.

In July, TAP Biosystems appointed six new distributors for Southeast Asia, including Bio-Reach for Northern China, Zil Sci for Singapore and Aurora Biosciences for Taiwan.

In September, Labcyte announced that Thermo Fisher Scientific will offer the option of receiving siRNA reagent libraries in its Labcyte Echo qualified source plates.

Beckman Coulter announced in September a collaboration with Indiana University’s Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics to create automated solutions for genomics applications designed to better pinpoint toxins that pose risks to the environmental and human health.

Product Introductions

BioTek Instruments introduced the Take3 Trio high-density plate for nucleic acid and protein quantification without sample dilution, which can measure up to 48 two µL samples.

Biochrom, a Harvard Bioscience company, launched the EZ Read 400 Flexi Reader with up to four filter at any wavelength of 400–750 nm, in addition to four standard ELISA filters.

Molecular Devices released in September the TUNE detection cartridge, which provides wavelength flexibility in a monochromator device, for its SpectraMax Paradigm Multi-Mode Microplate Detection Platform.

In September, Caliper Life Sciences launched the Zephyr NGS Post-PCR Workstation, designed for next-generation sequencing sample preparation workflows.

Pion released in September the Rainbow Dynamic Dissolution Monitor for fiber optic dissolution monitoring. It is priced for the pharmaceutical quality control lab.

Thermo Fisher Scientific introduced the second-generation Thermo Scientific CV2000 automated aliquoting liquid handler. It can dispense liquid volumes of 100–875 µL and process up to 1000 samples per hour.

Berthold Technologies released the second-generation TriStar2 LB942 plate reader for absorbance, luminescence and fluorescence, featuring enhanced fluorescence performance.