NEW YORK — Thomas Scientific has signed an agreement to distribute MicroGem's PrepGem line of nucleic acid extraction reagents, the companies said on Thursday.
Under the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, Swedesboro, New Jersey-based Thomas Scientific will introduce MicroGem's products to the biotech and pharmaceutical industry.
The PrepGem kit uses a thermostable proteinase enzyme that is activated by a temperature change. It is optimized for high-throughput, automated assays and can be used for extractions from small sample volumes. The product line includes PrepGem Universal for a range of samples including saliva, buccal swabs, dispersed cells, blood, insects, and most animal tissue, and PrepGem Bacteria for microbial samples such as gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria.
Earlier this year, Charlottesville, Virginia-based MicroGem acquired Jump Start Manufacturing, an engineering manufacturing company located in Nashua, New Hampshire, to help it scale up its SARS-CoV-2 testing system.
Also, MicroGem won up to $40.9 million under the National Institutes of Health's Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics initiative last year to speed up the launch of its COVID-19 saliva test.