Company Announcements

Life Technologies and the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) announced an exclusive collaboration to create the National High-Throughput Sequencing Center, the largest sequencing facility in Germany. The center will operate 10 SOLiD 4 hq systems.

In June, Illumina announced a new price of $19,500 for its individual genome–sequencing service, and a price of $14,500 per genome for groups of five or more participants using the same physician. Special pricing of $9,500 per genome is available for individuals with serious medical conditions for whom whole genome sequencing could provide potential direct clinical value. The company will also create the World Genome Registry.

BioScale, the developer of Acoustic Membrane MicroParticle technology for protein analysis, secured $25 million in a recent financing round.

In June, Gen-Probe made a $50 million strategic investment in sequencer developer Pacific Biosciences. The companies will also work together, initially on an exclusive basis for up to 30 months, to explore codevelopment of new integrated clinical diagnostics systems.

Single molecule DNA–sequencing developer NABsys named Leroy Hood, MD, PhD, cofounder and president of the Institute for Systems Biology, to its Board.

NanoString Technologies named Brad Gray president and CEO, and Nalini Murdter, PhD, chief business officer (CBO), in June. Mr. Gray was most recently vice president of Product & Business Development at Genzyme Genetics. Dr. Murdter joins the company from Agilent, where she held several senior management positions.

Fluidigm named Fred Walder as CBO in June. He was previously senior vice president, Customer and Commercial Excellence, at Thermo Fisher Scientific.

In June, OpGen appointed C. Douglas White as CEO. Formerly, he was executive vice president and general manager for the diagnostics division of GB Medicine.

Roche will provide funding and expertise for IBM’s nanopore-based sequencer technology, and will develop and market products based on the technology.

Product Introductions

Diagenode introduced the SX-8G IP-Star system for automated epigenetics assays. The platform includes magnetic bead–based ChIP and methylation kits, epigenetics antibodies and DNA purification kits.

OpGen launched the Argus Optical Mapping System for microbial whole genome analysis. The system generates ordered, whole genome restriction maps from single DNA molecules.

Sales/Orders of Note

In June, Illumina announced the purchase of 51 HiSeq 2000s by the Broad Institute, which will replace an equal number of the Institute’s Illumina Genome AnalyzersIIx.