Company Announcements

In March, Transgenomic expanded its license with the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute to include Ice COLD-PCR (CO-amplification at Lower Denaturing temperature PCR), a technique that further extends sensitivity of mutation detection, and an exclusive license for analysis of COLD-PCR products by Pyrosequencing.

WaferGen Biosystems and NuGEN Technologies agreed to codevelop and comarket integrated workflows for gene expression profiling and target enrichment.

TriLink BioTechnologies entered into a distribution agreement with TATAA Biocenter for its CleanAmp products.

In March, Eiken Chemical licensed its LAMP gene amplification technology to OptiGene for the development, manufacture and sale of nucleic acid amplification reagents for research use.

In April, Eppendorf licensed its patents covering gradient technology for thermal cyclers to Labnet International, a Corning subsidiary, for its Multigene gradient Thermal Cyclers.

Lonza and Roche entered into a coexclusive distribution agreement for Roche’s MycoTOOL mycoplasma PCR assays for biosafety testing of approved biologics.

Product Introductions

Fluidigm launched the BioMark HD Real-time PCR System, featuring a new fast thermal-cycling protocol that increases the throughput of the original system two-fold.

New England Biolabs introduced OneTaq and OneTaq Hot Start DNA Polymerases for robust amplification.

Bioline, a Meridian Bioscience company, launched the SensiFAST One-Step Real-Time PCR Kits for faster results with RNA templates.

Exiqon released an additional 235 prevalidated miRCURY LNA Universal RT microRNA qPCR assays, bringing the total offered to 1,731.

QIAGEN introduced the real-time Investigator Quantiplex Kit, which is designed to confirm in less than 50 minutes that DNA samples contain sufficient DNA for genetic fingerprinting analysis.

In March, WaferGen launched the SmartChip Human miRNA Panel V2 for gene expression profiling, featuring advances in content specificity and sensitivity.

Halo Genomics (formerly Olink Genomics) released the HaloPlex PCR Reagent Kit, which enables millions of PCR reactions in a single tube. The first product allows users to amplify up to 2,000 target exons in one tube.

In April, Agilent introduced the SureCycler 8800, a full-featured thermal cycler featuring high-speed and high-volume capabilities.

Life Technologies launched the TaqMan Mutation Detection Assays, based on castPCR (competitive allele-specific TaqMan PCR), which can detect a single mutant molecule in a background of one million normal copies.