Life Technologies, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire BioTrove, for an undisclosed amount.
This acquisition builds on a collaboration that Applied Biosystems entered into with BioTrove in 2007. At that time, Applied Biosystems assumed responsibility for commercialisation of the OpenArray business for genotyping applications.
BioTrove’s primary technology is the OpenArray platform, a high throughput gene expression and genotyping analysis system based on a flexible array format that enables researchers to perform more than 3,000 PCR genotyping or qPCR gene expression assays at a time.
The increased adoption of the SOLiD System, has generated greater use of qPCR for simultaneous validation of an increased number of gene targets. The OpenArray platform has the flexibility to allow for samples to be validated against a large target panel, or a larger quantity of samples to be screened against select validated targets. The technology is also used in applied markets, such as pathogen testing, and may enable future digital PCR applications.
Greg Lucier, chairman and chief executive officer of Life Technologies, said: “BioTrove’s technology is an important addition to our extensive PCR portfolio. This acquisition and other enhancements recently made to our PCR offerings enable us to remain the leader in this space, and exemplify how Life Technologies is setting new technology standards in areas important to the company’s future growth.”
With the OpenArray platform, Life Technologies and its Applied Biosystems subsidiary will be able to provide greater assay content in a higher density format. Applied Biosystems currently offers an expansive inventory of gold standard TaqMan assays, more than 1.1 million for gene expression and 4.5 million for genotyping applications.
Al Luderer, president and chief executive officer of BioTrove, said: “This acquisition will allow Life Technologies to build on the synergies and offer our customers even greater choice and flexibility in their gene expression and genotyping workflows.”