Stockholm, Sweden 9/2/11—Perten Instruments, a provider of quality control systems for food, has acquired TexVol Instruments. TexVol Instruments supplies volume-measuring instruments and texture-analysis systems. “The complimentary nature of the instrument ranges from Perten Instruments and TexVol Instruments allows us to deliver a wider range of analytical solutions to our customers from a single source,” said […]

Aubagne, France, Goettingen, Germany and Chalfont St. Giles, UK 9/12/11—Sartorius Stedim Biotech and GE Healthcare Life Sciences have signed a patent cross-licensing agreement for biotechnology manufacturing technologies. Sartorius has granted GE a sublicense to certain patents exclusively licensed from Fluorometrix that involve bioreactors with at least two optical sensors. GE has granted Sartorius a sublicense […]

Tokyo, Japan 9/28/11—Sony has announced the acquisition of Micronics, a provider of microfluidics technology for diagnostic applications, including point-of-care solutions, and research applications. The main focus of the company recently has been a molecular diagnostic platform for infectious diseases, according to Sony. “We believe that the combination of Micronics’ development capabilities in the medical diagnosis […]

Washington, DC 9/20/11—In a filing with the SEC, sequencer firm Pacific Biosciences announced the layoff of 130 employees, or 28% of its workforce. The company stated that the action was taken because of “uncertainties associated with the economic environment and to position the company for long-term success.” The reductions, which should be completed this month, […]

The second of IBO’s biannual new laboratory roundup indicates that new academic and consumer product labs, as well as labs in the Middle East, are being built or expanded. Many of these labs involve cross-disciplinary functions. The table on page 3 highlights plans for new academic, clean energy and contract research organization labs. In the […]

It is just six months since Pittcon, and IBO’s last review article on new product introductions (see IBO 3/31/11, 4/15/11), and already there is a new and lengthy list of notable new products. In this article, IBO highlights some of the product launches of the last six months based on their potential commercial and technical […]

Osmometers are designed to measure the osmolality of a solution. They measure changes in a solution’s colligative properties, such as freezing and boiling point, vapor pressure and osmotic pressure, which are proportional to the concentration of solute present. As particles are introduced into a solvent, freezing point and vapor pressure are lowered, but boiling point […]

Company Announcements Boreal Genomics named Nitin Sood CEO in June. He was most recently general manager of Agilent Life Sciences’ Automation Group. Roche and Caliper Life Sciences announced in July a comarketing agreement for the development and optimization of automated protocols for their respective NimbleGen SeqCap EZ Library and Sciclone next-generation sequencing (NGS) Workstation. In […]

Company Announcements First-half sales for Lonza’s Bioscience declined 2.8% to CHF 103 million ($114 million), but grew 13.2% in local currency, to make up 9% of company revenues. Within the unit, Research Solutions sales declined, with European sales up, US sales down slightly and growth in Asia Pacific. Under a reagent supply agreement announced in […]