Company Announcements

Helicos BioSciences launched a diagnostics business in June, including plans for a CLIA-approved genetic testing lab. Dr. Robert Wassman, founder of Good Start Genetics, was named chief medical officer.

Protein-detection and -quantitation system developer BioScale secured $25 million in a June financing round.

Advanced Analytical opened a sales office and lab in Heidelberg, Germany, which serves as the company’s European headquarters and a Center of Excellence.

Fluidigm announced a collaboration with SAIC-Frederick to decode the genome of the Epstein-Barr virus using its Access Array system.

Pacific Biosciences completed a Series F round of financing in July, raising $109 million and bringing the total capital raised to $370 million.

Pacific Biosciences appointed Terry Pizzie vice president, Europe. He was previously director of Global Commercial Operations for Genetix. The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is the firm’s first European customer.

In July, Axela, a maker of systems for multiplex protein biomarker testing, acquired Xceed Molecular, the developer of the Ziplex system for gene expression.

DNA Electronics licensed its intellectual property to Ion Torrent in August.

In August, Life Technologies and the University of California at San Diego Moores Cancer Center announced a partnership to use the SOLiD 4 System to survey the whole transcriptomes of 96 chronic lymphocytic leukemia tumor samples for potential biomarkers.

Product Introductions

UVP launched the BioSpectrum Imaging System with the BioLite MultiSpectral Light Source for multiple applications, including multiplex NIR imaging.

NanoString Technologies increased the throughput of its nCounter Analysis System to 800 gene transcripts per reaction.

GE Healthcare launched the Biacore T200 for the measurement of high-quality kinetic, affinity, concentration, specificity and thermodynamic interaction data in real time.

In July, Illumina launched the Illumina Genome Network, a partnership to link researchers interested in conducting large-scale whole human genome sequencing projects with leading institutions that can perform such projects using Illumina sequencing. Current partners include GMI/Macrogen and the National Center for Genome Resources.

Zoíray Technologies released the Spectral Reflectance Imaging Biosensor, a multiplexed immunoassay platform that utilizes disposable chips and optical detection.

Sage Science introduced in the US the Pippin Prep DNA size selection system, which automates the collection of DNA fragments, replacing manual gel purification.