Company Announcements

Shrink Nanotechnologies gained an exclusive right to use and sublicense Corning’s modular “plug-and-play” microfluidic system for at least eight years.

Caliper Life Sciences is collaborating with Sony DADC Austria AG to develop and manufacture plastic consumables for its next-generation microfluidics products using Sony’s Blu-ray Disc manufacturing technology. They have developed consumables for the LabChip XT system.

Sequenom named Robin Weiner senior vice president of Regulatory Affairs and Quality. She previously served as a consultant to numerous diagnostic companies.

US Genomics changed its name to Pathogenetix in November 2010. In November and December 2010, it raised more than $2.8 million in equity and debt offerings, according to SEC filings.

Former Millipore President, Chairman and CEO Martin D. Madaus, PhD, joined the Board of Quanterix, the developer of Single Molecular Array technology.

Sage Science raised $2.02 million in an equity offering in December 2010, according to an SEC filing.

In December 2010, Luminex and One Lambda announced the long-term renewal of their ten-year strategic partnership for human leukocyte antigen testing.

PET imaging system and reagent firm Sofie Biosciences closed a $2 million investing round in December 2010.

Silicon Biosystems formed a US subsidiary to commercialize DEPArray technology, which exploits microelectronics and the principles of dielectrophoresis to isolate and manipulate cells in a suspension matrix.

Boreal Genomics secured its first institutional financing, a Series B round totaling $6.9 million, in December 2010.

Fluorotechnics appointed Serva Electrophoresis GmbH as its sales and marketing partner and sold Serva its gel and HPE technology for €150,000 ($198,000).

Product Introductions

Syngene introduced a new range of G:BOX image analysis systems, featuring five models for fluorescence, chemiluminescence or both and new software.

Life Technologies released the Qubit 2.0 Fluorometer for DNA, RNA and protein quantitation, featuring an LCD color touch screen.

In December 2010, Life Technologies launched the Ion Personal Genome Machine sequencer based on semiconductor sequencing technology that enables chemical signals to be directly translated into digital information. It is shipping to selected sites. The company also initiated seven competitions for the sequencer, each with a $1 million prize. The first three competitions are: to produce twice as much sequence data; do it twice as fast; and do it with twice the accuracy. Reuters reported that the benchtop system costs $49,000 and has a run time of two hours.