Company Announcements

Cepheid 2014 Non-Clinical revenue declined 29.9% to $29.0 million, or 6% of total revenues, primarily due to lower sales of anthrax test cartridges. North America accounted for 86% of Non-Clinical sales. Non-Clinical revenue is expected to decline again this year.

WaferGen Bio-systems entered into a research collaboration with the Familial Breast Cancer Research Unit of the Women’s College Research Institute of the University of Toronto, which will utilize its Seq-Ready TE System with the goal of enabling affordable, large-scale BRCA1 and BRCA2 screening for the general population.

WaferGen Bio-systems 2014 sales increased 360.0% to $6.0 million. Product revenue grew 550.0% to $5.5 million primarily due to the acquired Apollo business (see IBO 2/28/14), which accounted for 39% of Product revenue. The SmartChip Real-Time PCR systems and SmartChip Target Enrichment Systems represented 41% of Product revenue. The Real-Time PCR Chip panels and other projects and services represented 20%. The US accounted for 59% of total revenues. Operating loss expanded from $9.9 million to $12.4 million. As of December 31, the company had cash and cash equivalents of $14.7 million. For 2015, revenue is expected to total $8.0–$8.5 million.

SYGNIS announced in March distribution agreements with Funakoshi for Japan, Ozyme for France and Sopachem for Belgium.

Under an April agreement, Biosearch Technologies will make, use, market and sell Co-Diagnostics’ CoPrimers technology to research institutions. The technology is also licensed to Biosearch for its own R&D. According to Biosearch, CoPrimers technology reduces the occurrence of primer-dimers without the need for hot start.

Product Introductions

New England Biolabs introduced in January the NEBuilder HiFi DNA Assembly Cloning Kit and Master Mix for one-step cloning and multiple DNA fragment assembly in as little as 15 minutes. No licensing fees are required.

In February, Bio-Rad Laboratories released predesigned PrimePCR Assays for six common model organism genomes used for gene expression analysis. They are available in SYBR Green and probe-based formats for a wide range of targets, as PreAmp assays for preamplification, and as control assays and templates.

Promega launched the PowerQuant System, a probe-based four-target, five-dye real time–PCR method. The system allows labs to determine human and male DNA concentrations in a sample, assess the integrity of the DNA sample and detect possible PCR inhibitors in approximately one hour.

Kapa Biosystems launched the KAPA PROBE FORCE qPCR Kit, which enables researchers to analyze samples directly from a crude extraction. It is compatible with sequence-specific fluorogenic probe chemistries.