Company Announcements

Cellular Dynamics raised $30 million in April in a Series B Preferred Stock financing, led by an entity affiliated with Tactics II Stem Cell Ventures.

New England Biolabs named two new exclusive distributors, extending it distribution network to 39 firms: BIOKE for Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg; and Imperial Life Sciences for India.

ATCC named Dr. Brian A. Pollok president in April. He was formerly chief scientific officer and head of Global Research and Development for Life Technologies.

In May, Sigma-Aldrich Sigma Life Science exclusively licensed from King’s College London a new technology for the identification and validation of miRNA targets in research and clinical diagnostics.

Miltenyi Biotec entered into a strategic alliance to become the exclusive source for five years of TeutoCell’s CHOMACS CD cell culture medium for biomanufacturing. The companies will also develop other culture media.

Sigma-Aldrich SAFC became a preferred partner for Agilent’s new nucleic acid–synthesis products and technologies, including TC-RNA Phosphoramidites.

In May, Cellectis bioresearch appointed Wako Pure Chemical Industries as the exclusive Japanese distributor of its research products and services.

In May, Abcam acquired MitoSciences, a provider of mitochondrial research tools, for $6.0 million in cash and stock. In 2010, MitoSciences had product revenues of $2.1 million. MitoSciences has a catalog of over 200 products.

Product Introductions

In April, Caliper Life Sciences introduced the XenoLight RediJect COX-2 Probe, a fluorescent-imaging agent that detects the COX-2 biomarker noninvasively in live animals as well as in ex vivo tissue analysis applications.

Thermo Fisher Scientific released the ActivX Serine Hydrolase Probes for the enrichment of serine hydrolase enzymes and the determination of enzymatic activity using fluorescent SDS-PAGE, Western blot or MS workflows.

GE Healthcare introduced Streptavidin Mag Sepharose magnetic beads and the MagRack Maxi magnetic rack.

Clontech, in collaboration with ARIAD Pharmaceuticals, released the iDimerize inducible dimerization systems for real-time control of protein-protein interactions.

Olink Bioscience released the Proseek open assay-development reagent kit for the detection and quantification of proteins in serum or plasma samples. It requires only 1 µL of sample.

Porvair Filtration Group introduced the Chromatrap Pro-A chromatin ImmunoPrecipitation kit, containing 24 assays in spin columns.

Life Technologies and ProBioGen introduced royalty-free Gibco Freedom Cell Line Development Kits, consisting of the Freedom CHO-S and DG44 Kits.