Company Announcements

Circulomics received in October 2015 a $1.5 million Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant from the NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences to create a portfolio of DNA/RNA extraction products.

Neoteryx announced a joint development agreement with Brechbühler, which will engineer a turnkey instrument that automates sample handling and extraction for its Mitra Microsampling Device, based on Volumetric Absorptive Microsampling, for direct injection into an LC/MS/MS system. Neoteryx has developed the Mitra PAL RTC with CTC Systems, a value-added reseller partner of Brechbühler.

In December, Chiral Technologies announced its Diffinity Genomics business began selling its RapidTip products through Fisher Scientific’s online catalog as an Encompassed Preferred Supplier in the US.

The Baltic Course reported in December 2015 that Thermo Fisher Scientific opened a $7 million aseptic processing lab in Vilnius, Lithuania, to develop Dynabeads. Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics now employs 570 people in Vilnius.

Product Introductions

MO BIO Laboratories launched in September 2015 the UltraMag Tissue & Cells DNA/RNA Isolation Kit for automated, hands-free co-isolation of DNA and RNA from animal tissue and cultured cells.

Biotage added a 1 mL column format to its ISOLUTE PLD+ protein and phospholipid-removal product line.

RESTEK introduced Resprep 96-well PPT3 (protein precipitation) plates with 2.0 mL wells.

In October 2015, Phenomenex launched the Strata-X µElution 96-Well Plates, enabling SPE from samples as small as 10 µL. Elution volumes are as low as 25 µL, eliminating the need to perform a dry-down step. They are offered in all five Strata-X polymeric selectivities.

Norgen Biotek released in November 2015 novel kits for the isolation of exosomes from plasma/serum, urine and cell culture media. They are designed to isolate all sizes of extracellular vesicle RNA, including miRNA. Also launched were four kits for the depletion of exosomes from fetal bovine serum.

Quad Technologies introduced the MagCloudz Streptavidin Cell Separation Kit. It is based on QuickGel, a hydrogel that is biocompatible, can be easily functionalized with cell capture agents such as antibodies, and can be dissolved rapidly by switching to a buffer containing a chelating agent.

In January, New England Biolabs introduced the Monarch Nucleic Acid Purification Kits for DNA cleanup and purification of plasmid DNA.

Waters launched five ProteinWorks Digest Kits for standardizing LC/MS quantification of proteins via the surrogate peptide approach.