Company Announcements

Following the acquisition of 95% of GENEART’s shares, Applied Biosystems GmbH agreed in November 2010 to pay €14.60 ($20.06) per share for minority shareholders’ shares (see IBO 4/30/10, 6/15/10).

Contract research organization Domainex will collaborate with Sigma-Aldrich to use its Combinatorial Domain Hunting technology to produce soluble domains of a number of proteins that have key roles in epigenetics and to construct assays for the target enzymes. Sigma-Aldrich will use the proteins as antigens to raise specific monoclonal antibodies that it will distribute.

In November, DiscoveRx acquired Ambit Biosciences’ KINOMEscan kinase-screening services division.

Bar Harbor BioTechnology formed a diagnostic division in December 2010.

Product Introductions

Sigma-Aldrich SAFC expanded the availability of Zinc Finger Nuclease (ZFN)–based technology to include off-the-shelf ZFNs and custom cell-engineering services.

PerkinElmer launched a panel of epigenetics-based detection reagents, which employ LANCE Ultra and AlphaLISA detection technologies, for high-throughput screening of drug candidates.

In November 2010, Sigma Life Science, as part of an exclusive partnership with Atlas Antibodies, released 1,700 Prestige Antibodies, bringing the entire portfolio to more than 10,000 antibodies covering 8,400 protein targets.

CYTOO Cell Architects introduced the CYTOOplates 96 for high-content screening. The glass bottom plates’ adhesive micropattern technology normalizes cell phenotypes.

Reinnervate launched alvetex 3D cell culture technology in a 12-well plate design.

Protein Discovery introduced two new FASP Protein Digestion Kits for solubilization and digestion of both fluid and tissue sample proteomes.

Genovis released FragIT MicroSpin columns for the fragmentation of up to 0.5 mg IgG in 15 minutes and deClycIT MicroSpin columns for deglycosylation of up to 0.5 mb IgG in 15 minutes.

Biotage introduced the ChemMatrix PEG-based resin from Matrix Innovations for peptide synthesis.

Takara Bio’s Clontech Laboratories released the Xfect Protein Transfection Reagent, which uses a cell-penetrating peptide. It allows for transfection in 1–2 hours.

In December, Source BioScience acquired imaGenes, a German provider of genomics and proteomics research products, for £2.0 million ($3 million) in cash. ImaGenes had 2009 sales of £2.5 million ($3.9 million).

Roche introduced the X-tremeGENE 9 and X-tremeGENE HP DNA transfection reagents for commonly used and hard-to-transfect cell lines, respectively.