Company Announcements

Roche Diagnostics licensed rights from Exiqon A/S to use the SYBR Green I reagent in real time PCR.

Enigma Diagnostics opened a US office in San Francisco, California, in December 2008.

Ionian Technologies granted EnviroLogix exclusive rights to develop, manufacture and sell tests for the agricultural, plant pathogen and veterinary markets, utilizing its Nicking Enzyme Amplification Reaction technology.

In January, Ocimum Biosolutions was named an authorized service provider for NuGEN Technologies’ Ovation Systems in India.

Gene Express named Funakoshi as a Japanese distributor and Biogenuix Medsystems as an Indian distributor.

DxS granted DuPont Qualicon a license to use its Scorpions diagnostic platform to develop tests for the food industry.

Helixis, a developer of low-cost qPCR systems, named Jay Flatley, CEO of Illumina, to its Board in February.

Product Introductions

Applied Biosystems introduced the TaqMan Sample-to-SNP Kit for real time PCR genotyping. It consists of the DNA Extract All Lysis Reagents and the TaqMan GTXpress Master Mix.

Applied Biosystems introduced in March TaqMan Copy Number Assay solutions, consisting of more than 1.6 million predesigned assays, as well as custom assays.

Enigma Diagnostics launched an upgraded version of the Enigma FL system for in-field real time PCR. Freeze-dried assays are provided by Applied Biosystems.

Integrated DNA Technologies introduced custom-designed PrimeTime qPCR assays, with enough mix to conduct up to 8,000 assays.

Asuragen released the BCR/ABL1 Quant (RUO) kit, utilizing multiplex qPCR based on TaqMan technology for the detection of BCR/ABL1 fusion transcripts.

Bio-Rad Laboratories introduced the Bio-Rad CFX384 real time PCR detection system and CFX Manager Security Edition software. The system utilizes the Bio-Rad C1000 thermal cycler chassis.

NuGEN Technologies introduced new amplification and labeling solutions specifically for use with Agilent Dual-Mode Gene Expression Microarrays.

Evogen launched the affordable EvoCycler HD12, which can process 12 samples in 30 minutes. It is offered in conjunction with the HyBeacons PCR chemistry, which is licensed from LGC.

Promega released the PowerPlex 16 HS System for complete profiles from inhibited DNA samples.

In March, Fluidigm introduced the 48.770 Digital Array for digital PCR. It can test up to 48 individual samples at a time with the automatic partitioning of each sample for the delivery of 36,960 simultaneous digital PCR reactions.