Company Announcements

BioServ Biotechnologies acquired the majority of Ocimum Biosolutions Inc.’s assets in February (see IBO 12/15/11), according to thedeal.com.

Harvard Bioscience’s Biochrom subsidiary acquired AHN Biotechnologie, a German manufacturer of plastic consumables lab products, in February. The purchase is expected to add $2.5 million in annual revenue.

In February, BellBrook Labs announced that Thermo Fisher Scientific will exclusively distribute its iuvo Microconduit Array plates for cell-based assays.

In February, Integrated DNA Technologies (IDT) acquired the oligonucleotide business of Singapore-based 1st BASE. IDT renamed the business 1st BASE Custom Oligos and retained the 1st BASE brand for the small-scale DNA oligos that it synthesizes in Singapore.

Sigma-Aldrich Sigma Life Science acquired in February a license to use Kyoto University’s iPS cell patent portfolio. IPS Academia Japan will receive a license fee.

DNA2.0 named Cosmo Bio as a Japanese distributor.

In March, Anteo Diagnostics signed a patent and technology license agreement with eBioscience, providing them with access to its Mix&Go technology for the manufacture of biological reagents.

Product Introductions

In February, ATT introduced 10 Tissue-Specific Tumor Cell Panels, each of which is comprised of different cell lines that have been grouped by tissue of tumor origin.

MBL International launched the AngioPhase angiogenesis kit, which allows for the analysis of all known phases of the angiogenic process in a convenient and flexible format. TCS Cellworks granted MBL a license to manufacture and sell the assay in North and South America.

Innova Biosciences released the InnovaCoat GOLD 40 nm gold-particle kit for the covalent conjugation of gold nanoparticles to antibodies, proteins and biomolecules. Other sizes and nanoparticles will be introduced soon.

Promega introduced the QuantiFluor RNA System, which enables the quantitation of as little as 100 pg of RNA in solution.

EMD Millipore launched a MILLIPLEX MAP panel for assessing the functional states of cells by profiling a range of receptor signaling pathway proteins. The Luminex-based approach enables the profiling of 26 analytes.

In March, Agilent released SureFISH probes for constitutional and cancer applications, including cytogenomics research. They enables users to specifically detect aberrations in regions of the genome as small as 50 kb, as well as aberrations near highly repetitive regions.

Bio-Rad Laboratories launched the Bio-Plex Pro Human Th17 cytokine panel, which detects 16 soluble proteins and features nine new targets, and the Bio-Plex Pro human cancer biomarker panel 1, which detects 16 biomarkers and features eight new targets.