Company Announcements

In June, Gyros named Bio Laboratories its sole distributor for Singapore.

Life Technologies announced in June R&D collaboration with Boston Children’s Hospital to develop an end-to-end genetic sequencing lab workflow based on the Ion Proton Sequencer.

Life Technologies began in June collaboration with the University of North Texas Health Science Center’s Institute for Applied Genetics for forensics identification applications using the Ion PGM.

BioOptix Diagnostics named Michael W. Routh, PhD, formerly with General Electric, to its Board in June.

In June, BioNano Genomics announced it raised $10 million in a Series B-1 round of equity financing.

Pacific Biosciences named Jonas Korlach, PhD, previously a scientific fellow at the company, chief scientific officer in June.

Product Introductions

Illumina launched in April BaseSpace Apps, an applications store for its BaseSpace genome cloud computing platform. A publicly available applications programming interface allows developer to create and deploy new applications. The firm also introduced the iSAAC genome alignment tool for faster aligning of sequencing reads.

Illumina launched in June the premium RapidTrack Whole Genome Sequencing Service as part of its FastTrack Sequencing Services. It delivers the sequencing of a whole genome in less than two weeks for a price of $9,500 per sample or volume discounts to $7,600.

In May, ForteBio, a Pall company, launched the Dip and Read Ni-NTA biosensors for use on its Octet and BLItz instrument platforms for rapid and direct quantitation and kinetic analysis of HIS-tagged biomolecules.

Life Technologies in May launched the Wildfire template-preparation technology upgrade for its 5500 and 5500xl Genetic Analyzers. It enables template preparation in two hours, reduces the price of sequencing by 50% and delivers the highest number of tags for any next-generation sequencer for RNA sequencing.

Life Technologies introduced in June the Comprehensive Cancer and Inherited Disease Ion AmpliSeq Panels, which deliver a single-day workflow comprising target selection, amplification, sequencing and analysis. Also launched was the Ion AmpliSeq Library Kit 2.0, which can detect rare somatic mutations, and Ion Reporter Software, a cloud-based software that performs alignments, generates variants and performs automated annotation.

Sofie Biosciences launched the ELIXYS automated radiochemistry platform for the production of PET probes. The multi-reactor system features disposable cassettes.

Aushon released in June the Cira multiplex immunoassay platform, including the circular Ciraplex assay design, Cirascan chemiluminescent imager and bioinformatics.