Company Announcements

In the third quarter of 2008, Caliper Life Sciences restructured its business into three units (Discovery Research, Optical Molecular Imaging and Caliper Discovery Alliances and Services) to create a more scalable infrastructure, resulting in a workforce reduction. The initiative is expected to achieve $2.6 million in annualized savings.

Caliper entered into a licensing agreement for DuPont Intellectual Assets & Licensing’s OncoMouse technology for spontaneous tumor models.

Pressure cycling technology firm Pressure Biosciences announced in December 2008 a restructuring program, including the closing of an R&D facility and a 40% reduction in workforce (eight employees). The program is designed to reduce cash burn from just under $1 million per quarter to an average of just under $600,000 per quarter during 2009.

Pressure Biosciences and Omni International, a maker of lab homogenizers, entered into a strategic marketing, distribution and technology codevelopment agreement. Omni will sell Pressure Biosciences’ PCT Shredder.

Pressure Biosciences is collaborating with the J. Craig Venter Institute, which also purchased the firm’s Barocycler NEP2320 PCT Sample Preparation System.

Under an exclusive license with Battelle Memorial Institute, Pressure Biosciences gained access to technology for an automated, in-line sample preparation system that combines pressure-accelerated protein digestion with HPLC separation.

As part of the EU’s four-year, €12 million ($15 million) Revolutionary Approaches and Devices for Nucleic Acid Analysis consortium, Oxford Nanopore received €730,000 ($923,589) in grant funding.

Dexas Laboratory Sciences will distribute VAMP’s TomoScope Series of micro CT scanners in North America.

Febit named Jack Leonard, PhD, previously director of Genomics and Molecular Biology at Millipore, to the newly created position of vice president of Technology and Commercialization. He will also head up febit’s Analytical Services Group in the US.

In December 2008, Rheonix acquired biosensor firm Innovative Biotechnologies to enhance the development of its CARD (chemistry and reagent device) microfluidic technology.

In January, Protein Forest opened a European division headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.

Helicos Biosciences announced in January that it has reduced the price of its DNA sequencer from $1.35 million to $999,000.

Sales/Orders of Note

The Beijing Institute of Genomics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences acquired eight additional SOLiD Systems from Life Technologies in December 2008, bringing its total to nine.