Invitrogen has entered into a strategic development and distribution relationship to invest in Blue Heron Biotechnology in exchange for worldwide rights to distribute custom gene synthesis services
Invitrogen will become the exclusive worldwide distributor of Blue Heron's synthetic genes.
Blue Heron Biotechnology's proprietary GeneMaker platform can synthesise any gene sequence, with perfect accuracy regardless of length or complexity, which makes it ideal for the synthetic biology market.
Researchers worldwide are increasingly turning to synthetic genes as a convenient, cost-effective alternative for traditional cloning.
Accurate and rapid synthesis of synthetic genes has allowed pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to speed the drug discovery process through an ability to rapidly and accurately synthesise known genes, and produce from them novel proteins, new vaccines and diagnostics.
"Invitrogen recognises the tremendous new possibilities that gene synthesis offers life science researchers," said Nathan Wood, vice president of cloning and protein expression.
"We have developed a broad array of products that complement Blue Heron's GeneMaker platform and this agreement continues to enhance our portfolio offerings to our customers".
Invitrogen is a provider of recombinant cloning and protein expression products, as well as a provider of the largest fully sequenced human open reading frame clone collections.
Gene synthesis builds upon this strength and will be especially useful in emerging fields such as synthetic biology.
"Partnering with a life sciences leader such as Invitrogen is an important milestone in Blue Heron Bio's continued growth and signals an important milestone for the overall gene synthesis market as well.
"We are very pleased to be able to make our gene synthesis services available through Invitrogen's unmatched distribution and marketing channels," said John Fess, CEO of Blue Heron Biotechnology.
As part of the agreement, the companies will co-develop new products and services for the research and bio-pharmaceutical markets.
