Company Announcements

In March, Roche signed an R&D agreement with BioLamina to jointly develop new cell culture systems for various applications, including stem cell research.

The Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and Sony DADC announced a collaboration to further advance the Institute’s Organs-on-Chip technologies.

Techne named Charles Kummeth CEO, effective April 1. He previously served as president of Mass Spectrometry and Chromatography at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

New England Biolabs opened its seventh subsidiary in Singapore in March.

OriGene Technologies announced in March the completion of a $21.3 million Series C financing.

Medicyte licensed Life Technologies’ Lentiviral vector technology for the development of upcyte cell products.

Product Introductions

Horizon Diagnostics introduced Quantitative Multiplex Reference Standards for the quantification of a range of detection thresholds for 11 cancer-relevant mutations. It is a single assay in the form of renewable material originating from precisely engineered cell lines.

Promega released the Trypsin/Lys-C Mix, MS Grade.

Cellectis and Stemgent are collaborating to provide research services for custom genome-engineered iPS cells.

In March, Bio-Rad launched the new Bio-Plex Pro RBM human, rat and canine kidney toxicity panels, which were developed with Myriad RBM. They consist of multiplex immunoassays comprising a set of biomarkers.

ChromoTek introduced Chromobody plasmids for real-time monitoring of key intracellular target molecules in vivo.

Bioo Scientific released the MaxSignal Enrofloxacin ELISA test kit, which has a detection limit of 0.1 ppb.

Olink Bioscience launched in March the Proseek Multiplex protein biomarker immunoassay, which can quantify 92 proteins in a 1 µL sample. The first kit is Oncology 1, and future panels will be for cardiovascular disease, inflammation and diabetes.

Exiqon introduced the LNA longRNA GapmeR products for specific and efficient inhibition of mRNA and IncRNA for functional studies.

In March, Firefly Bioworks expanded its FirePlex miRSelect assay from a maximum of 23 multiplexed miRNAs to 68.

Neogen introduced an easy, 10-minute lateral flow device test to detect ractopamine in animal and animal feed samples.

PerkinElmer released the GRF-Vivo 680 imaging agent, calling it the first fluorescent agent that allows researchers to measure glomerular filtration rate noninvasively in vivo in animals.