Company Announcements

Takara Bio expanded its license agreement with iPS Academia Japan in September 2013, enabling it to offer iPS cell construction services and reprogramming vectors, and to sublicense to its customers the right to screen chemicals for drug discovery using cells differentiated from iPS cells derived from the licensed products.

Novus Biologicals acquired Imgenex in October 2013.

In November 2013, GE Healthcare Life Sciences licensed Cellectis to develop, manufacture and sell models derived from stem cells for use in drug discovery and toxicity screening.

QuantiBact changed its name to Anapa Biotech and appointed Søren Morgenthaler Echwald CEO. Most recently, he was a vice president of Business Development at Exiqon.

In December 2013, ATCC entered into a strategic partnership with Evercyte to develop and distribute immortalized cell lines that retain key performance characteristics of primary cells.

SomaLogic appointed Byron Hewett CEO in December 2013. Most recently, he served as CEO of BioBehavioral Diagnostics.

In December 2013, the NIH collaborated with Life Technologies to provide researchers with access to siRNA data from Life’s Silencer Select siRNA library. The NIH released complementary data on the effects of each siRNA molecule on biological functions.

Definigen completed a £1.3 million ($2.1 million) funding round in December 2013.

Under a licensing agreement, Biomatrica will supply ATCC with its reagents for room temperature DNA and RNA stabilization.

Product Introductions

In November 2013, Diagenode launched a premium line of antibodies for epigenetics applications.

Life Technologies released general purpose reagents for the development of molecular diagnostic assays based on qPCR and capillary electrophoresis. They are marked “For Laboratory Use.”

Life Technologies introduced in December 2013 the GeneArt Chlamydomonas Protein Expression Kits and GeneArt Synechoccus Protein Expression Kits, enabling researchers to freeze and store Chlamydomonas strains at -80° C.

AMSBIO introduced in November 2013 a new range of neural progenitor cells and cerebral cortical neurous derived from human iPS cells.

In December 2013, Promega released the QuantiFluor ONE dsDNA system, a dsDNA-specific fluorescent dye suitable for research and clinical workflows, which is supplied in an “add-and-read” format.

Promega launched in January the ViaFect Transfection Reagent for DNA transfer into a variety of cell lines.