NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – PerkinElmer today said it has acquired VisEn Medical for an undisclosed amount.
In a statement, PerkinElmer said that the purchase of the in vivo molecular imaging technology firm will enhance its cellular imaging business by "expanding [its] technologies and capabilities downstream into preclinical research undertaken in academic institutes and pharmaceutical companies."
Founded in 2000, VisEn Medical's customer base includes academic imaging facilities and departments, biologists, radiologists, pharmaceutical therapeutic research departments, contract research organizations, and others. Its technologies include its Fluorescence Agent Portfolio and Fluorescence Molecular Tomographic Imaging Systems, and are used in research into cancer, inflammation, cardiovascular, skeletal, and pulmonary diseases.
In PerkinElmer's statement, Richard Eglen, president of the company's Biodiscovery segment, said that VisEn molecular imaging platforms and tools are synergistic with PerkinElmer's existing business, and the deal "broadens our product portfolio along the drug discovery pipeline, from basic disease-based research to preclinical drug discovery applications, through the addition of proprietary chemistries in the emerging and fast growing space of translational biomarker reagents."
VisEn's technologies provide quantitative imaging data that can be useful in the identification and characterization of "a range of disease biomarkers and therapeutic efficacy in cells and animal models," PerkinElmer said, and added that the two firms' technologies can enable better screening and optimization of new drugs, which in turn can allow researchers to better correlate isolated cellular activity with in vivo biological activity. Ultimately, researchers will be able to "get closer to understanding human responses and thereby develop better potential therapies," the company said.