IonSense named KR Analytical as the European distributor for its DART MS ion source in November 2006.

Bruker Daltonics and HealthLinx will file a joint patent cooperation treaty for the biomarker candidates for pregnancy complications discovered under their existing collaboration. Bruker Daltonics retains marketing rights to the blood test in Europe, UK, Africa and South America, and HealthLinx retains marketing rights for Australia, New Zealand and Asia. The companies will jointly market the test in the US and Canada.

In December 2006, Bruker BioSciences established an MS demonstration and application support center at the Bio21 Institute Business Center at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

The UK’s Competition Commission is examining whether Thermo Fisher Scientific’s acquisition of GV Instruments (see IBO 7/31/06) will lessen competition in the UK market for gas isotope ratio MS, thermal ionization MS and multicollector-ICP-MS.

Waters and Advanced Chemistry Development agreed to develop an automated method development solution for LC and MS.

In January, Waters released control software enabling compatibility between its ACQUITY UPLC system and Applied Biosystems/MDS Sciex’s MS products controlled by Analyst software.

In February, Spark Holland and Waters agreed to comarket their respective Symbiosis online solid phase extraction system and MassLynx MS software to high-volume clinical labs.

Cerno Bioscience named Lumiere Technology as the Chinese distributor of its MassWorks MS data software.

Cerno Bioscience added file support for its MassWorks MS software for Varian’s MS Workstation software.

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) granted an exclusive option to license the technology developed by its Tridend business unit to MassTag Technologies. OGT will also become a minority shareholder in MassTag.

Syagen Technology named Chris J. McBee, former director of International Security Sales for Thermo Fisher Scientific, as director of Sales and Marketing.

Product Introductions

Precision System Science and Medical ProteoScope released the ProScope automated plasma preprocessing system for MS analysis.

Advanced Chemistry Development released ACD/Method Development Suite for Mass Spectrometry, a software package that supports LC/MS data for HPLC method optimization and project management.

Thermo Fisher Scientific introduced the MSQ Plus single quadrupole LC/MS.

Bruker Daltonics released flexImaging 2.0 software for MALDI-TOF and TOF/TOF imaging data, featuring “Class Imaging” for the classification of tissue types.