Company Announcements

Douglas Scientific acquired in January the Smart-DART Platform for portable molecular diagnostics screening from DIAGENTIX. DIAGENTIX continues to have rights to develop and commercialize the platform.

In February, Life Technologies assigned IntegenX the rights to distribute Life’s GlobalFiler Express chemistry on IntegenX’s RapidHIT platform.

WaferGen announced in March it named Maithreyan Srinivasan, formerly senior director of R&D for Genomics at Agilent Technologies, as CTO.

Following its acquisition by bioMérieux (see IBO 9/15/13), BioFire has formed a subsidiary dedicated to biodefense.

In March, RainDance Technologies closed a $16.5 million Series E financing-round extension. New investors included GE Ventures and Northgate Capital.

In April, InstantLabs entered into an agreement with the University of Guelph, a creator of DNA bar-coding technology, to codevelop a portfolio of DNA-based seafood species–identification tests. The firm plans to launch the tests within four months.

Product Introductions

In February, Bioline entered the epigenetics field with its launch of the EPIK Fast Quantification Kit and EPIK Amplification Kit based on the MyTaq and SensiFAST polymerases, and the EPIKORE buffer system.

Life Technologies launched the Quantifiler Trio and Quantifiler HP (Human Plus) Quantification kits, featuring enhanced autosomal targets and new tools to assess sample degradation and inhibition.

In May, Life Technologies introduced a set of new TaqMan multiplex reagents for interrogating samples for up to four targets simultaneously.

In March, Eppendorf introduced the Mastercycler nexus X2 for high-volume, simultaneous PCR runs. Comprised of two asymmetric blocks, it consists of 64 and 32 wells, which can be programmed and run independently.

Empirical Bioscience, formerly known as Syzygy Biotech, introduced the FlashTaq Hot-Start Taq DNA Polymerase, featuring enhanced stability, rapid activation time and a chemically modified enzyme.

TATAA Biocenter and MultiD Analyses released in March GenEx 6 software for accurate analysis of qPCR data compliant with current Clinical Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. New analyses include estimates of PCR efficiency, and new features include transcript distribution for single-cell analysis.

Bio-Rad Laboratories introduced the Automated Droplet Generator, a liquid handling station for preparation of 96 samples for the QX200 Droplet Digit PCR System.

Agilent Technologies introduced in May the SureDirect Blood PCR Kit for amplification of DNA directly from blood and blood derivatives.