NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Dutch biotechnology company Molecular Biology Systems said today that it has signed a distribution deal with Intas Science Imaging Instruments to launch its NextGen PCR thermal cycler in Germany.
The German market is the largest in Europe, accounting for 20 percent of the region, MBS said. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
According to MBS, NextGen PCR cuts the time for DNA amplification from hours to minutes, performing a three-step, 30-cycle protocol in less than two minutes. It uses standard format 96- or 384-well microplates, moving them rapidly across three temperature zones already set to the required denaturing, extension, and annealing temperatures.
MBS was founded in 2014, received its first funding in April of 2015, and began development of NextGen PCR one month later. It announced in November 2016 that NextGen PCR had been adopted by Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands for BRCA1 testing. The firm made Isogen Life Sciences the exclusive distributor of NextGen PCR in Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Spain in July 2017. It also signed distribution deals for the cycler in September 2017 with PreMed Lab in China, Pronto Diagnostics in Israel, Ybux in the Czech Republic, Albiogen in Russia, and Camlab in the UK, and an additional deal with Canon BioMedical in April 2018 for the US and Canada.
"With the addition of Intas Science Imaging in Germany and Canon Biomedical in North America, our distribution network is significantly strengthened. Interest is high and we look forward to a good volume of orders in the near future," MBS CEO Gert de Vos said in a statement.