Industry News in Brief
Bio-Rad, Horiba, MDS Nordion, Nimblegen, Roche Diagnostics and
Thermo Fisher Scientific.
Abbott Laboratories have been warned by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that its manufacturing processes used for blood testing diagnostics fall short of federal standards and that approval of certain products will be prevented until they are fixed. The warning comes less than a month after Abbott received the regulatory go-ahead to sell its diagnostic business to General Electric for $8.13bn (€6.1bn). Beckman Coulter has been awarded a new agreement with the largest healthcare purchasing network in the US, Premier, to supply automation, general chemistry, immunoassay, integrated workcells and haematology products. Beckman Coulter supplied more than $150m of instruments and supplies to Premier members in 2006. Bio-Rad has opened its first Asia-Pacific manufacturing facility in Singapore that will make high-end diagnostic tools such as those used in genetic research. The new plant will occupy 20,000 square feet in Kaki Bukit. "The Asia Pacific market is one of our fastest growing markets and feedback is very helpful to us in the planning our production," said Scott Jenest, Manufacturing Ops Manager, Bio-Rad. Horiba ABX is soon to commence work on a new €8m consolidated reagent plant in response to continued growth of the company's haematology and clinical chemistry products. The new facility will be based in Montpelier, France, and will almost double production capacity to 13,000 tonnes of reagents per year. MDS Nordion has entered into an agreement with molecular imaging company Avid Radiopharmaceuticals to radiolabel Avid's proprietary compounds for use in proof-of-concept clinical trials for SPECT imaging of Alzheimer's disease. NimbleGen have been appointed by Upstream Biosciences to provide genome chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-chip arrays and laboratory services to validate Upstream's in silico binding site predictions. Roche Diagnostics has continued its spring spending spree, by splashing out $600m to acquire BioVeris, who provide diagnostic and vaccinology technologies to healthcare providers. The acquisition will give Roche access to BioVeris' complete patent portfolio of electro-chemiluminescence (ECL) technologies currently used under license in its Elecsys product line. "This acquisition ensures that Roche will be able to provide unrestricted access to all customers and therefore represents a significant growth opportunity for our immunochemistry business," said Severin Schwan, CEO Division Roche Diagnostics. Roche Diagnostics has also signed an agreement of collaboration with the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics (FIND) to explore possibilities to develop in-vitro diagnostic products for poverty related diseases. Thermo Fisher Scientific has completed its sale of Genevac to the private equity firm Riverlake Equity Partners for $17m. The divestiture was required by the European Commission (EC) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as the sole condition of Thermo Electron's merger with Fisher Scientific.
