NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Analytical testing firm Toxic Reports has acquired the assets of pathogen identification firm PathoGenetix for an undisclosed amount.
The Watertown, Mass.-based firm now owns all the intellectual property and proprietary designs of the Resolution Microbial Genotyping System that PathoGenetix had been developing. Toxic Reports said it is proceeding with the design and manufacture of the full commercial version of the system and plans to sell it directly to customers starting next month.
Initial applications for the platform will be in bacterial pathogen identification in the food safety and public health and epidemiology spaces, it said.
PathoGenetix, which was headquartered in Woburn, Mass., filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy during the summer. The company was founded in 1997 as US Genomics.
The Resolution System is based on a genotyping technology called Genome Sequencing Scanning for detecting pathogens in environmental samples. Toxic Reports noted that MRIGlobal, an independent contract research firm, purchased an early commercial version of the Resolution System last April and is using it in a government-funded project.
Toxic Reports said that the purchase of PathoGenetix's assets expands its product and services from the analyses of simple organic molecules to include the characterization of bacteria in environmental and food samples.