Company Announcements

Cepheid’s 2015 Non-Clinical revenue declined 1.2% to $28.7 million, or 5% of total revenues. North America Non-Clinical sales grew 11.0% to $27.6 million due to increased grant and collaboration revenues. International Non-Clinical sales fell 75.0% to $1.0 million. Non-Clinical revenue is also expected to decline in 2016.

In February, Cepheid named Warren Kocmond, former executive vice president and COO, as president and COO. The company also appointed Marc Haugen as executive vice president, Engineering and Operations. Previously, he served as group vice president, Worldwide Operations and Supply Chain, at Applied Materials.

In February, TATAA Biocenter partnered with Yikon Genomics and will distribute Yikon’s MALBEC products for single-cell whole-genome amplification in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Germany, Austria, Slovak and the Czech Republic.

Bio-Rad Laboratories announced CE IVD marking of its QX200 Droplet Digital PCR System in the EU.

In March, Seegene Technologies established a US custom service and innovation division, located in Concord, California. The division will serve as the company’s technology innovation arm. It will make Seegene’s multiplex PCR assay technology available for innovative research applications in the US for molecular diagnostic development, clinical and translational research, and other life science and agricultural applications.

Product Introductions

Integrated DNA Technologies released the PrimeTime Gene Expression Master Mix for probe-based qPCR.

In February, Clontech Laboratories, a Takara Bio company, launched TaKaRa Taq Hot Start Version GMP grade. It is the business’s first GMP-grade polymerase.

Bioline, a Meridian Bioscience company, introduced the EPIK miRNA Select Assay for studying individual miRNA molecules. It is the result of a collaboration with MiRXES.

In March, Thermo Fisher Scientific released the Thermo Scientific SureTect Cronobacter Species Real-Time PCR Assay for detection of Cronobacter species in powdered infant formula.

In April, Bio-Rad Laboratories introduced five Droplet Digital PCR Multiplex Mutation Screening Kits for detecting several key actionable cancer mutations and the wild-type allele in a single reaction.

3M Food Safety launched the 3M Molecular Detection Assay 2 – E. coli O157 (including H7).

SeraCare Life Sciences introduced in May the AccuPlex Zika Reference Material for the development and validation of PCR-based Zika virus assays.

Canon Biomedical expanded its line of genotyping assays supporting drug response research, adding 11 new assays to bring the total number available to over 40.