NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Life Technologies recently acquired privately held Cytonix, a microfluidics technologies firm, the firm said earlier this week in its second-quarter earnings statement.
Life Technologies provided few details about the acquisition of the Beltsville, Md.-based company. However, it said that it acquired the firm for its intellectual property related to its microfluidics-based digital polymerase chain reaction technology.
Life Technologies also said that it plans to license the technology to partners as well as commercialize new products that can be used for applications ranging from next-generation sequencing library quantification to molecular diagnostic assays.
Last year, Cytonix's wholly-owned subsidiary, Genomic Nanosystems, licensed to Sequenom exclusive rights to use its digital PCR methods for non-invasive, prenatal diagnostic testing and sample analysis on any platform. In addition, Sequenom obtained exclusive rights to use digital PCR in conjunction with mass spectrometry for all commercial, diagnostic, or research applications except second-generation sequencing.