MDS Analytical Technologies Acquires Blueshift Biotechnologies
27 Giugno 2008 - 3:00PM
PR Newswire (US)
Complementary technology to augment MDS Analytical Technologies'
cellular analysis capabilities SUNNYVALE, CA, June 27
/PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- MDS Analytical Technologies, a leader in
innovative solutions for drug discovery and life sciences research,
today announced it has acquired California-based Blueshift
Biotechnologies (Sunnyvale, CA) for $13 million. The acquisition of
Blueshift Biotechnologies, a developer of screening platforms for
life sciences research and maker of the IsoCyte(TM) benchtop laser
scanning cytometer, expands MDS Analytical Technologies'
capabilities in cellular analysis, and further strengthens the
company's global sales and service offering. High Content Screening
(HCS) and High Content Analysis (HCA) are growing trends in both
pharmaceutical drug screening and life sciences research. MDS
Analytical Technologies' cellular imaging product line now includes
imaging systems and software that provide life sciences and drug
discovery researchers with a more complete solution to conduct HCS
and HCA. Cellular imaging provides intracellular information on
compound effects for a large variety of cellular processes.
Blueshift Biotechnologies' IsoCyte(TM) instrument conducts rapid
image analysis of large populations of cells in a microtiter plate
whole-well format. Whole-well, rapid cellular analysis enables a
cost-effective solution for the adoption of HCS and HCA into high
throughput screening environments. "This acquisition fills a gap in
our current product portfolio, allowing us to offer our
pharmaceutical research customers fast and simple cellular analysis
with a line of instrumentation that images the whole well at true
high throughput screening rates," said Andy Boorn, president of MDS
Analytical Technologies. "There are currently fourteen IsoCyte
instruments installed at academic, biotech and pharmaceutical
companies in North America. With our extensive global sales force,
we have the ability to bring this novel product to a wider global
market." "We are very excited about this opportunity for Blueshift
Biotechnologies to merge into a world-class company like MDS
Analytical Technologies," stated Evan Cromwell, president of
Blueshift Biotechnologies. "The breadth and strength of its sales
and marketing efforts mean that we will be able to increase
awareness of this unique high-throughput imaging tool in new
markets." About MDS Analytical Technologies MDS Analytical
Technologies is a newly established MDS Inc. business unit and is a
world-class organization comprised of two main lines of business.
The Sciex product portfolio offers proven market leadership in mass
spectrometry through its joint ventures with two of the world's
leading analytical instrumentation and life sciences companies,
Applied Biosystems, a business of Applera Corporation, and
PerkinElmer Inc. Molecular Devices' product portfolio is the gold
standard in high-performance bioanalytical measurement systems that
accelerate and improve drug discovery and other life sciences
research. Find out more at http://www.moleculardevices.com/ or
http://www.mdssciex.com/. About MDS Inc. MDS Inc. (TSX: MDS; NYSE:
MDZ) is a global life sciences company that provides market-leading
products and services that our customers need for the development
of drugs and diagnosis and treatment of disease. We are a leading
global provider of pharmaceutical contract research, medical
isotopes for molecular imaging, radiotherapeutics, and analytical
instruments. MDS, Inc. has more than 5,500 highly skilled people in
29 countries. Find out more at http://www.mdsinc.com/ or by calling
1-888-MDS-7222, 24 hours a day. DATASOURCE: MDS Analytical
Technologies CONTACT: Media: Cheri Salazar, Molecular Devices, now
part of MDS Analytical Technologies, (408) 548-6316, ; Investors:
Kim Lee, MDS Inc., (416) 675-6777 ext. 34721,
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