Company Announcements

Aushon BioSystems named AH diagnostics an exclusive distributor for Scandinavia.

In December 2012, Sequenom named William Welch, senior vice president of Diagnostics, as president and COO; Dirk van den Boom, senior vice president of R&D, as executive vice president, R&D, and chief technology officer; and Ronald Lindsay, executive vice president of R&D, as executive vice president, Strategic Planning.

Biocartis completed a $44.5 million Series D fund raising in December 2012.

The Genome Institute of Singapore and Fluidigm established a single-cell genomics research center.

OpGen entered into a scientific and technical partnership with the University of California, Davis, in cooperation with the FDA-supported 100K Genome Project to create high resolution microbial genetic maps.

Biolin Scientific announced in December 2012 the discontinuation of its Farfield business and Farfield’s AnaLight dual polarization interferometer technology.

Fluidigm named Gerhard Burbach, president and CEO of Thoratec, to its Board in January.

In January, InDevR spun off ViroCyt to expand the commercial market for the Virus Counter technology.

Illumina announced that in the fourth quarter of 2012 it submitted its MiSeqDx System and cystic fibrosis full gene sequencing assay to the FDA for 510(k) clearance.

Life Technologies in January established a Global Influenza Network, a collaboration with public agencies and research institutes for flu monitoring and vaccine development using the Ion PGM.

In February, Axela appointed AmeriTech Advisors to evaluate strategic opportunities, including licensing of molecular diagnostic tests and technologies.

Product Introductions

Life Technologies released a 400 base-pair sequencing kit for the Ion PGM Sequencer.

ForteBio launched in January the Dip and Read Anti-Human Fab-CH1 biosensor for its Octet and BLITz systems.

PerkinElmer introduced the IVIS Lumina Series III, which integrates bioluminescence and full-spectral fluorescence in vivo imaging technologies. It consists of four models: the IVIS Lumina III, IVIS Lumina K, Lumina XR and Lumina LT.

Pacific Biosciences released in January the SMRT Analysis 1.4 software upgrade that includes near perfect base-level accuracy using a new Quiver multi-read consensus algorithm and the ability to assemble entire microbial and fungal genomes solely using PacBio long reads.

Syngene introduced the PXi Touch image analysis systems for imaging chemiluminescent and fluorescent blots as well as 1D and 2D gels.