Industry news in brief - week 40
with developments at Affymetrix, Celera, deltaDOT, Eksigent,
Farfield, Nanogen and Olympus UK.
Affymetrix is joining the personal genomics service race with a new collaboration with personal genetics start-up Navigenics. The new collaboration is aiming to provide consumers with an understanding of their genetic predisposition for developing various medial conditions. Navigenics will supply consumers with a saliva collection kit which will be shipped to Affymetrix' labs where whole-genome screens will be run and the analysis sent back to Navigenics. Consumers will then provide the analysis to the costumer via a secure, private web portal and offer genetic counselling. The collaboration will be competing against Google-funded start-up, 23andMe, who recently inked a supply agreement with Illumina for customised SNP (single nucleotide polymorphism) microarrays. Celera has licensed rights of its PCR thermal cycling instruments and reagents to Siemens Medical Solutions Diagnostics for use in human in vitro diagnostic applications. Financial details were not disclosed. London, UK -based deltaDOT has received £3m (€4.3m) in a fourth and final tranche of funding from its investors following the continuing success of the business. "This funding highlights the success of deltaDOT and our recent corporate deals. We are already achieving our sales targets for Peregrine, our High Throughput Capillary Electrophoresis systems, and the funds raised will enable us to increase the production capacity for our Peregrine system," said Anthony Baxter, CEO of deltaDOT. "We will also develop our international sales and marketing function, particularly in the USA, which has already been expanded with a number of recent appointments to the board of directors and management team." Eksigent has added three new distributors to its European network, which now extends to Cyprus, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. The California, US, -based company supplies liquid chromatography (LC) systems, the NanoLC-1D and NanoLC-2D, based on microfluidic flow control technology to ensure highly reproducible proteomics separations using a minimum of sample and solvent. In addition, the ExpressLC range provides rapid, high-resolution separations at throughput levels up to 40 times that of conventional HPLC systems. These systems will now be available through Best Buy Analytical in Greece and Cyprus, LabService Analytica in Italy and Ingenieria Analitica in Spain and Portugal. Farfield Scientific's marketing director, Dr Simon Carrington has won the Institute of Directors "International Business Director of the Year". "Simon has championed our expansion abroad and it is immensely gratifying to see his achievements acknowledged by the Institute of Directors," said Gerry Ronan, Farfield's CEO. "The fact that Simon was selected from such an outstanding collection of nominees is truly noteworthy and we at Farfield are rightly very proud of his achievement." Nanogen has been granted two US Patents that extend the company's intellectual property (IP) surrounding its MGB Alert products and reagents. US Patent No. 7,252,940, extends the company's IP used in its real-time PCR (polymerase chain reaction) products used in validating genome wide scanning and US Patent 7,205,105 covers the probes used to detect genetic sequences associated with pathogens such as cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and enterovirus. Olympus UK is moving to new headquarters in Watford that will combine its Consumer and Scientific operations under on roof. The move is in response to increased demand for training and demonstration facilities that will be accessible to customers across the country with its close links to both the M1 and M25 motorways. "Olympus is delighted to be moving to our new building in Watford, we have made a significant investment in state of the art facilities which reflects our commitment to our growing life science business," Piers Devereux, managing director of Olympus' Scientific business.
