Company Announcements

Agilent and Sage Science signed a comarketing agreement in February for Agilent’s 2100 Bioanalyzer and Sage Science’s Pippin Prep DNA size-selection system.

Life Technologies introduced a fourth $1 million challenge in its Life Grand Challenges Contest: to sequence the genome and all RNA content derived from a single cancer cell using the 5500 Series SOLiD Sequencers.

BioNanomatrix elected R. Erik Holmlin CEO in January. He was previously president and CEO of GenVault.

Rapid Micro Biosystems announced in February a sales and marketing agreement with Life Technologies for their respective Growth Direct system for microbial detection and MicroSEQ Rapid Microbial Identification system for bacterial and fungal identification.

In February, Luminex partnered with Partners Healthcare to develop molecular diagnostic assays based on biomarkers discovery within Partners HealthCare entities.

NanoString named Chris Grimley vice president of Marketing and Katherine Webster vice president of Worldwide Sales. Most recently, Mr. Grimley was senior director of Genomics Marketing at Agilent, and Ms. Webster was senior sales director at QIAGEN’s Life Science business.

Fluidigm appointed Eisenberg Brothers as its distributor in Israel.

Caliper Life Sciences announced in March that Wako Pure Chemical Industries obtained 510(k) clearance for its µTASWako i30 immunoanalyzer and AFP-L3 and DCP assays, which incorporate Caliper’s LabChip technologies.

Product Introductions

Bruker launched the benchtop, push-button pTD (portable Toxin Detector), codeveloped with Analytik Jena. It features detection capabilities for bacterial or viral agents, using a lab chip–based, fully automated ELISA process that allows simultaneous identification of five toxins in less than 30 minutes with an order of magnitude better sensitivity than traditional techniques.

QIAGEN released the new QIAxcel Advanced multicapillary gel electrophoresis system, featuring improved hardware and the new ScreenGel software.

ForteBio introduced the Octet RED96 System, featuring biosensor re-racking, which extends the number of tests that can be performed with a single biosensor. The company also released the Dip and Read Protein L Biosensor.

NanoString Technologies introduced the nCounter Human Karyotype Panel, the first fixed-panel assay to be developed on the company’s copy number variation–detection platform.

Sales/Orders of Note

In February, Caliper Life Sciences announced the installation of its 1,000th IVIS preclinical imaging system at the Center for Advanced Molecular Imaging at Northwestern University.