Caprion expands assay development services after acquisition

15-Jan-2019 - Last updated on 15-Jan-2019 at 15:22 GMT

(Image: Getty/marchmeena29)

Caprion Biosciences will provide mass cytometry services to expand its offerings as a specialty CRO after its acquisition of Primity Bio.

The contract research organization (CRO), Caprion Biosciences will offer Fluidigm Corporation’s mass cytometry platform CyTOF for high-content immune monitoring after acquiring Primity Bio, which held access to the platform.

"Caprion Biosciences is our newest CRO mass cytometry service provider delivering multi-system capacity," said Chris Linthwaite, president and CEO of Fluidigm Corporation.

Caprion stated that by providing high-quality mass cytometry services from custom assay design to data analysis the company can expand its offerings to clients looking to accelerate biomarker discovery and therapeutic development.

CyTOF, according to Caprion, allows for the simultaneous detection of 40 parameters per cell, which allows for the characterization of immune cell phenotypes, function, and signaling status in high dimension.

Per the acquisition, Caprion’s clients also will have access to Primitiy’s CellEngine, a proprietary cloud computing software for analysis of flow cytometry data.

Martin LeBlanc, CEO of Caprion told us that mass cytometry is an important tool to include in its assay development and cytometry services.

“Mass cytometry is increasingly being used for deep immune cell profiling in translational and clinical research. It is therefore a natural expansion of Caprion’s biomarker offering and flow cytometry expertise, providing our clients with the ability to characterize the immune response in high dimension,” he added.

The increasing use of cell profiling in biopharmaceutical drug development has led other CROs like Smithers Avanza and SGS to make similar expansions and agreements.