Company Announcements

Yunnan Energy International (formerly Techcomp) announced in December 2018 an exclusive distribution agreement with Eprep for China, Hong Kong and Macau SAR.

In December 2018, PreOmics, which is developing sample preparation products for MS, raised €3.3 million ($3.8 million) in a Series A funding round led by Think.Health Ventures.

In January, Covaris, a developer of ultrasonicators, signed an exclusive distribution agreement with Alliance Global for the Middle East, Africa and parts of Central Asia.

Chromatrap entered into a partnership with Covaris in January to offer a highly scalable and simple ChIP (Chromatin ImmunoPrecipitation) workflow enabling researchers to easily isolate protein DNA complexes for downstream applications, such as ChIPSeq, ChIPqPCR, NGS and MS.

Pressure BioSciences announced in January a collaboration with NutraFuels to advance the development of a new generation of health and wellness nutraceutical products based on processing using its Ultra Shear Technology platform.

In March, Pressure BioSciences announced a collaboration with Germany’s Steinbeis Center for Biopolymer Analysis & Biomedical Mass Spectrometry, combining the capabilities of its pressure cycling technology with the Steinbeis Center’s PROTEXMS instrument for elucidating structural details of antibody interactions.

In February, Macherey-Nagel and Andrew Alliance signed an agreement to develop an automated solution for the preparation of transfection-grade plasmid DNA. Under the co-marketing agreement, Macherey-Nagel will combine its existing NucleoBond Xtra Midi kits with Andrew Alliance’s OneLab software platform and Andrew+ robot.

Gilson announced in February a new partnership to distribute AFFINISEP’s line of sample preparation and extraction products. The products and services complement Gilson’s ASPEC line of SPE instruments and bring application-specific kits and pre-developed methods.

In February, Porvair Sciences announced its involvement in a new £2.6 million ($3.8 million) project led by Swansea University that aims to improve the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian cancer. This project will involve collaboration with five key industrial partners: Porvair Sciences, Bruker UK, GE Healthcare UK, Axis Bio and GlaxoSmithKline. A new antibody drug conjugates company will join the project in its second year. The Cluster for Epigenomic and Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) Therapeutics project aims to utilize novel epigenetic drugs and ADCs to manipulate chemical compounds thus creating a new route for the treatment of ovarian cancer. Porvair will supply its ChIP technology.

Product Introductions

QIAGEN launched in November 2018 the new DNeasy Plant Pro Kit, a system for extraction of high-quality DNA from varied plant samples. The new kit includes the innovative bead beating technology for significantly higher sample disruption efficiency.

In January, Pressure BioSciences announced the commercial launch of its Biopharmaceuticals Contract Services Business. This follows the company’s acquisition of the assets of BaroFold, which supplies technology for the disaggregation and controlled refolding of proteins, in December 2017.

Gene synthesis provider GenScript released the AmMag SA semi-automatic purification instrument that simplifies protein and antibody purification. The AmMag SA, developed under an exclusive license agreement with Amgen, features high throughput for larger sample volumes, enabling researchers to purify up to 50 mL samples while maintaining a low endotoxin environment.

In February, BUCHI Labortechnik introduced the Universal Extractor E-800, a new extraction line that includes a fully automated extraction unit for residue and contaminant analysis, natural products research, and analysis of polymers and materials. The company also debuted the FatExtractor E-500, a specialized instrument for fat extraction.

In March, Diagenode debuted its third generation long-fragment DNA shearing innovation, the Megaruptor 3. The new instrument is designed to provide automated and consistent fragmentation of DNA from 5 kb to 100 kb.