BOSTON (GenomeWeb News) — Oxford Gene Technology has closed one of its business units as it concentrates on developing and launching new microarray products and growing its licensing revenue in newer markets like Japan, according to a company official.
OGT's CEO Mike Evans said this week that OGT had decided to close down the unit, called Tridend, because it "didn't fit with OGT's core strategy." Evans spoke with GenomeWeb News at IBC Life Sciences' Discovery 2 Diagnostics conference, held here this week.
Evans said that OGT will now "look at ways of utilizing the Tridend technology externally" with partners and is considering licensing opportunities for the IP behind Tridend.
Evans told GenomeWeb News sister publication BioArray News in May 2005 that Tridend is focused on commercializing the firm's mass spectrometry technology for applications such as genotyping or protein characterization. The unit was one in development as the company sought to expand its business beyond licensing.
In recent months, however, OGT has been more focused on launching a series of prokaryotic chromatin immunoprecipitation (ChIP)-on-chip arrays as well as chips for comparative genomic hybridization.
The firm also signed four licensing deals in Japan in August, and signed another licensing deal with Invitrogen last week.