Company Announcements

WaferGen Biosystems announced in May that it raised $30.4 million in a private placement financing of equity and debt.

In May, Roche Applied Science signed an exclusive OEM agreement with IT-IS Life Sciences for the distribution of IT-IS’s low-throughput LightCycler Nano Instrument.

Halo Genomics appointed Ozyme as a distributor for France and Nacalai Tesque as a distributor for Japan.

Product Introductions

RainDance Technologies launched in April the HLASeq Research Screening Panel for human leukocyte antigen and major histocompatibility complex using next-generation sequencing.

Life Technologies released in April the TaqMan OpenArray MicroRNA Panels, which use a novel stem-loop primer during the reverse transcription reaction. Three samples can be screened per OpenArray slide.

In June, Life Technologies introduced the TaqMan E. coli 0104 Detection Kit for detecting the E. coli bacterium responsible for the outbreak in Europe.

In April, Ahram Biosystems launched the Palm PCR system, a palm-sized, battery-powered thermocycler, which comes with specially optimized PCR reagents and consumables.

Exiqon released the Pick & Mix miRNA PCR panels for quantification of custom selected miRNAs in both 96- and 384-well array formats.

In May, Fluidigm introduced for its platforms the DELTAgene Assays for gene expression, SNPtype Assays for SNP genotyping and Access Array Target-specific Primers for target enrichment. Customers will receive the assay locus sequence on every order, making it easier to comply with MIQE standards.

Halo Genomics released the HaloPlex PCR BRCA Panel Kit, its first optimized gene panel kit.

QIAGEN launched the qBiomarker Somatic Mutation PCR Array System for mutation profiling. It consists of collections of pathway or cancer-specific assays in 96- or 384-well plate formats with a number of pathways and cancer types.

In June, Esco launched the Spectrum 96 Real Time Thermal Cycler, with eight channels, six-color optics and a bottom-detection system.

Pall introduced its new GeneDisc Cycler, a pathogen detection system for the testing of up to 96 samples in as little as one hour. It features a new cycler that is faster and more practical for screening for microbial contaminants in food.

In June, Roche Applied Science launched the compact LightCycler Nano Instrument for low-throughput (32-well format, 4 x 8 tube strips) workflows. It can be used in networks and does not require a dedicated computer.