Company Announcements

Lonza licensed in June Axxam’s Photina, i-Photina and Clytin Photoproteins as calcium biosensors for its range of Clonetics Primary Cells.

Promega partnered with SignalChem Pharmaceuticals in July to launch a complete solution for profiling kinase inhibitor compounds against the human kinome. The solution combines unique Kinase Enzyme Systems with Promega’s ADP-Glo Kinase Assay.

LifeSpan BioSciences established exclusive distribution agreements with 11 partners for its full catalog of 75,000 antibodies.

TriLink BioTechnologies entered into a multiyear distribution and supply agreement with Affymetrix for use of its oligonucleotides in several kits.

Cisbio Bioassays established a technical support and service laboratory in Shanghai, China. The laboratory was set up in collaboration with China’s National Center for Drug Screening.

Clontech Laboratories, a Takara Bio subsidiary, amended its licensing agreement with Tet Systems to obtain rights to develop, manufacture and commercialize novel products as the Tet-On 3G Inducible Expression System. New products were introduced in August.

Lifeline Cell Technology, a subsidiary of International Stem Cell, signed a distribution agreement with Sristi Biosciences for India.

Commonwealth Biotechnologies announced in July that it is “highly unlikely” it will be able to acquire GL Biochem (see IBO 10/31/09).

Product Introductions

Epigentek introduced the MethylFlash Hydroxymethylated DNA Quantification Kit, based on a high-throughput strip-well format, for the identification and quantification of the “sixth DNA base.”

Genovis released the IgG Mass Spec Kit for performing both deglycosylation and fragmentation of Immunoglobulin G. The kit processes 1 mg IgG in one hour.

In July, EMD Millipore launched its family of EpiGRO epithelial cells and culture media for research.

Thermo Fisher Scientific introduced the Thermo Scientific miRIDIAN shMIMIC Lentiviral miRNAs for the stable expression of mature miRNAs.

In July, GE Healthcare released Hi Mag Sepharose Ni, Protein A Mag Sepharose Xtra and Protein G Mag Sepharose Xtra magnetic beads for magnetic purification and screening of histidine-tagged proteins and antibodies.

Illumina launched the TruSeq SBS Sequencing Kit, enabling high-quality paired end reads of 150 bp, increased output of high-quality base calls and enhanced throughput to greater than 95 Gb of high-quality base pairs per run.

Bioo Scientific launched the ExoMir Kit for fractionation of exosomes and RNA extraction from exosomes and other micropartices in cell-free fluids.