Head-hunter Katie Davis is consistently keeping up to date with the latest news within the biotech industry, whether that be funding news, acquisitions, spin outs and expansions, legal updates, layoffs and restructuring, collaborations or general product updates. In this blog, we explore the latest updates throughout the month of May. You can subscribe to Katies biotech funding updates over on LinkedIn to keep up to date with the ever-growing biotech market.
Acquisitions, spin outs and expansions:
Arbor Biotechnologies acquires Serendipity Biosciences, a genome editing technology start-up cofounded by CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang of the Broad Institute.
Genomenon has acquired the Clinical Knowledgebase (CKB) division from Jackson Laboratory (JAX) for an undisclosed amount.
Seer launches new technology access centre in Europe to expand accessibility to unbiased proteomic solutions.
Fluidic Sciences acquires assets of Fluidic Analytics and relaunches protein research tool.
Myriad Genetics reorganizes European operations and sells EndoPredict business to Eurobio Scientific.
MilliporeSigma announced the signing of a definitive agreement to acquire Mirus Bio for $600 million. Mirus Bio, part of Gamma Biosciences, specialises in developing and commercialising transfection reagents, such as TransIT-VirusGEN®.
Vector Laboratories to merge with Absolute Biotech.
Integrated DNA Technologies invests in New U.S. Synthetic Biology Manufacturing Facility.
Quest Diagnostics to Acquire PathAI Diagnostics to Accelerate AI and Digital Pathology Adoption in Cancer Diagnosis; Forms Licensing Agreements with PathAI.
Precision for Medicine Opens Expanded State-of-the-Art Biomarker Research and Companion Diagnostic Laboratory in Frederick, Maryland.
Bruker completes acquisition of molecular diagnostics innovator ELITech and sees Q1 revenue rise 5%.
Incyte expands Presence in Delaware through Acquisition of Two Downtown Wilmington Office Buildings.
Complete Genomics expands to the East Coast with a new Customer Experience Centre in Greater Boston’s Biotech Hub.
Legal update:
The European Unified Patent Court issued a preliminary injunction against Curio Bioscience in a patent infringement case brought by 10x Genomics that presents a hurdle to sales of Curio’s Seeker spatial mapping kit in France, Germany, and Sweden. Both Curio and 10x Genomics claimed wins as the court found no infringement of 10x’s broadest IP claim but found likely infringement of a narrower claim.
A US federal judge has allowed Vizgen to expand the antitrust allegations in its countersuit against 10x Genomics, which is part of a patent infringement dispute between the firms.
The US District Court for the District of Delaware has denied denied Geneoscopy’s motion to dismiss a patent infringement lawsuit Exact Sciences.
German federal patent court rules in favour of NanoString (now part of Bruker), invalidating 10x Genomics patent.
Lawmakers have revised the proposed Biosecure Act to extend the separation deadline between certain US clients and the so-called “biotechnology companies of concern,” including China’s BGI Group and MGI Tech, and the latter’s US subsidiary Complete Genomics.
The American Clinical Laboratory Association (ACLA) and its member company HealthTrackRx have filed a lawsuit against the US Food and Drug Administration challenging the agency’s May 6 final rule on laboratory-developed tests (LDTs).
CareDx stock tumbles after Natera asks for injunction in patent suit. CareDx said it uses a new process in its AlloSure products that does not infringe on a Natera patent related to cleaning noisy genetic data.
Molecular Instruments said that the Patents Court of the High Court of England and Wales has dismissed Advanced Cell Diagnostics’ infringement claims against the firm and has ordered ACD, a Bio-Techne group company, to pay Molecular Instruments £1.35 million ($1.72 million).
Layoffs and restructuring:
Cue Health laid off 49% of the workforce and filed for bankruptcy. Additionally, the FDA has issued a warning letter recommending against the use of Cue Health’s COVID-19 tests for home, over-the-counter, and patient care use due to an increased risk of false results.
WuXi AppTec will reduce its headcount at a site in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Ginkgo Bioworks will cut spending following disappointing first-quarter financial results, including reducing labour expenses by at least 25%.
Collaborations and partnerships:
MaxCyte signs strategic platform license agreement with Legend Biotech to accelerate cell therapy discovery and development.
Qiagen and Myriad Genetics to develop sequencing-based homologous recombination deficiency kit.
Genialis and PanCAN partner to validate biomarker for KRAS-inhibitor response and clinical benefit.
NowPatient inks Pharmacogenomics testing deals with Aura Genetics and Zotz Klimas.
Burning Rock and Bayer to develop NGS-based companion diagnostics in China.
Evotec strikes metabolic disease research alliance with Inserm and Lille University Hospital.
Sophia Genetics, Nvidia and Microsoft team up on Whole-Genome Sequencing application.
Foundation Medicine and PMV Pharma ink deal to Develop CDx for investigational solid tumour therapy.
Salignostics and Sheba Medical Center partner on saliva-based oral cancer test.
Synthego licenses CRISPR enzyme from China’s HuidaGene Therapeutics.
Watchmaker Genomics and SPT Labtech partner to automate NGS library prep.
Basepair and Amazon Web Services partner on bioinformatics integration.
BioMérieux, Pfizer and Malawi Ministry of Health collaborate on antimicrobial resistance effort.
Inocras and IMBdx partner on cancer diagnostics in US.
Oxford Nanopore Technologies and Twist Bioscience partner for pharmacogenomics beta program.
Telo Genomics and Emery Pharma ink collaboration agreement to offer their respective clients complementary cellular and molecular bioanalytical solutions for clinical R&D initiatives.
Ambry Genetics and PacBio to sequence up to 7K human genomes for rare disease study.
Oxford BioDynamics and King’s College London to develop biomarkers for rheumatoid arthritis prevention.
Integrated DNA Technologies and Molecular Health form NGS data analysis partnership.
Neosphere Biotech collaborate with Kymera Therapeutics on Drug Discovery.
Delfi Diagnostics and OSF HealthCare partner to expand blood-based lung cancer screening.
Metrodora Institute and PrecisionLife to launch biomarker-driven long COVID and CFS trials.
Akoya Biosciences and NeraCare partner to develop melanoma tests.
Qiagen and FBI Partner to develop digital PCR forensic test.
Broken String Biosciences and Crick Institute team up for ALS research.
FDNA and Genome Medical combine phenotyping tools and genomic service to speed up rare disease diagnoses.
AstraZeneca signs precision medicine agreements with M42 and Karolinska Institutet.
Biocartis and Merck KGaA extend RAS testing partnership to Middle East and North Africa.
Angle PLC to develop prostate cancer liquid biopsy assay for AstraZeneca.
Genomenon partners with Pharming to improve diagnosis of rare immunodeficiency syndrome.
T2 Biosystems inks Middle East distribution for Lyme Disease testing.
The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and Tasso announce partnership to advance blood cancer research.
Portal Biotechnologies and Multiply Labs announce partnership to automate cell engineering in cell therapy manufacturing.
Danaher launches collaboration with Johns Hopkins University aiming to improve neurological diagnosis.
Beckman Coulter and MeMed extend partnership advancing host immune response diagnostics.
Curiox Biosystems and Beckman Coulter Life Sciences announce a partnership combining C-FREE™ technology with DURA innovations for hands-free washed sample preparation for flow cytometry.
Product updates:
JEOL Ltd. announces the release of the new electron microscope JEM-120i.
Beckman Coulter Secures FDA clearance for heart failure assay on DxI 9000 Immunoassay Analyzer.
Fluent BioSciences launches the PIPseq V 3′ Single Cell RNA Sequencing Kits.
Limbus Medical Technologies gets IVDR Class C certification for genomics software.
Foundation Medicine CDx gains Japanese approval to detect copy number alteration, bTMB score.
CeGaT gets Blue Cross Blue Shield contract for genetic testing services.
Guardant Health receives IVDR certification for Guardant360 CDx across solid tumors.
Qiagen gets IVDR certification for clinical insight interpret software and FDA clears Qiagen QiaStat-Dx rapid syndromic respiratory panel. This month they also launched the Qiagen QiaSeq Multimodal DNA/RNA Library Kit and QCI Secondary Analysis.
CareDx HeartCare tool more effective than Cell-Free DNA testing alone in clinical study.
Indica Labs receives FDA clearance for HALO AP Dx digital pathology platform for use with Hamamatsu Images acquired with the NanoZoomer® S360MD Slide Scanner and launches HALO(R) software.
Sapio Sciences unveils enhanced molecular biology toolkit.
Diasorin nabs FDA 510(k) clearance for expanded respiratory panel.
CDC launches Influenza A wastewater surveillance dashboard.
Baylor Genetics launches RNASeq Test for Whole Genome and Whole Exome Sequencing, Reduces Turnaround Times, Introduces Four New Genetic Analysis Panels.
Golden Helix gets CE Mark for genetic analysis software.
Geneoscopy nabs FDA approval for stool-based colorectal cancer screening test.
Tempus has officially launched the xM (NeXT Personal Dx) Test, developed by Personalis.
10x Genomics has launched its Xenium Prime 5K Pan-Tissue and Pathways panel.
Dovetail Genomics has launched its AssemblyLink Assay to streamline genome assembly.
Parse Biosciences has launched Trailmaker, a cloud computing platform for single-cell analysis. Trailmaker is the result of Parse’s acquisition of Biomage. They also launched Evercode BCR and TCR products for single-cell immune profiling.
Biognosys introduced its P2 Plasma Enrichment offering which allows for measurement of up to 7,000 proteins in plasma.
Shimadzu introduced its new series of LCMS RX Triple Quadrupole Mass Spectrometry instruments.
Takara Bio has launched the PrimeCap T7 RNA Polymerase, a mutant T7 RNA polymerase designed for mRNA therapeutic research and development.
Qlucore has released a new version of Qlucore Insights, a bioinformatics model to classify primary lung tumour samples and metastatic lung cancer lesions.
NimaGen has launched its EasySeq full-length 16S library prep kit to enable full 16S rRNA sequencing for microbiome deconvolution and bacterial species ID within eight hours.
Dotmatics has released Geneious Cloud Workspace and Geneious Prime 2024, both of which are designed to facilitate genomic data analysis and research.
Twist Bioscience has launched its Multiplexed Gene Fragments, pools of directly synthesized double-stranded DNA between 301 bp and 500 bp long to enable high-throughput screening applications.
Cytek Biosciences has introduced an Enhanced Small Particle (ESP) detection option for its flagship Cytek Aurora and Cytek Northern Lights cell analysis systems.
Roche subsidiary Foundation Medicine has launched its FoundationOne RNA test for clinical use in the US.
Micronbrane Medical has introduced two Pathogen Real-Time Identification by Sequencing (PaRTI-Seq) metagenomic next-generation sequencing micro kits (PaRTI-Seq mNGS Micro Kits). They also launched the PaRTI-Cular Bioinformatics Web Application for research use only (RUO).
Thermo Fisher Scientific has introduced the Applied Biosystems Axiom BloodGenomix array and software for blood genotyping.
EditCo Bio recently launched its Knockout CD4+ T-cell Pools for CRISPR-mediated primary T-cell editing.
KromaTid this week introduced its GLP Genomic Integrity Karyotyping services.
Bionano Genomics has released what it called “major advancements” to its suite of computational tools for comprehensive cancer analysis.
Bosch Healthcare Solutions has launched a PCR test for detecting Candida auris on the Vivalytic platform. Agilent announces the NovoCyte Opteon, a cutting-edge spectral flow cytometry solution.
Karius Test® Receives FDA Breakthrough Device Designation to Aid in the Diagnosis of Infectious Disease.
(All findings throughout this blog article were founded from Crunchbase (2024). Crunchbase is the leading destination for company insights from early-stage startups to the Fortune 1000. )
If you’re a biotech startup looking for talent, or you’d like to learn more about our recruitment services, submit your vacancy and a recruitment consultant that specialises in your biotech field will be in touch shortly.
Alternatively, are you seeking advice on your next move? I’m here to help. Register with us today to schedule a confidential discussion about your career prospects.
