Company Announcements

Life Technologies signed an exclusive license agreement for Novici Biotech’s ErrASE, a DNA error–correction kit. Life Technologies plans to integrate the technology into its synthetic biology offerings and retains rights to sublicense it.

Life Technologies signed a strategic licensing agreement in November for exclusive rights to produce and supply Biopredic International’s cryopreserved HepaRG cells worldwide and to produce and supply other formats in North America.

GE Imanet signed a master service agreement for preclinical and clinical imaging supporting the development strategy for ImaginAb’s pipeline of diagnostic-imaging agents based on recombinant antibody fragments. Imanet will validate ImaginAb’s library of preclinical-imaging probes for microPET and microSPECT imaging.

Global Cell Solutions signed a North American distribution agreement with VWR in October for its GEM magnetic microcarrier products.

Cellectis bioresearch established a US subsidiary in October in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Cellectis in-licensed iPS Academia Japan’s pluripotent stem cell technology for research, development and commercialization of research tools and human therapeutics.

In October, Melvin F. Lazar retired from Enzo Biochem’s Board, whose size was reduced to six members.

Commonwealth Biotechnologies agreed to sell Mimotopes to Leadtec Systems Australia, a provider of custom antibodies, proteins and kits, for a cash consideration of $950,000 and an earn-out potential.

Sigma Life Science announced a joint agreement allowing The Jackson Laboratory to distribute mouse models created using its zinc finger nuclease (ZFN) technology.

Product Introductions

New England Biolabs launched a new suite of EpiMark validated products, including a family of methylation-dependent restriction enzymes that excise 32–base pair fragments from whole genomes.

GE Healthcare introduced the Amersham ECL* Prime, a chemiluminescent western blotting reagent with stable signal emission for up to three hours after addition.

GE Healthcare launched the Membrane Protein Purification Kit containing His Mag Sepharose Ni for detergent screening of histidine-tagged membrane proteins.

EMD Millipore released the CpGenome Turbo kit for bisulfite conversion, which converts unmethylated cytosines to uracil in 90 minutes.

Life Technologies launched the GENEART High-Order Genetic Assembly System, a gene-cloning platform that enables the efficient assembly of up to 10 synthetic or pre-existing DNA fragments in yeast to create a sequence of up to 100 kbp in length. The GENEART Seamless Cloning and Assembly Kit was launched for smaller constructs.