Scrum to Distribute NextGen’s Products in Japan
NextGen Sciences said last week that the Japanese company Scrum will distribute some of its products in Japan.
Under the agreement, Scrum will be a non-exclusive distributor of NextGen’s protein expression platform, Expressionfactory, and its automated two-dimensional gel electrophoresis system, a2DE, in Japan.
Scrum is planning to introduce NextGen’s products in Japan at the Bio Expo show in May.
Ciphergen Buys Up Remainder of Japanese Affiliate
Ciphergen Biosystems said last week that it has bought the remaining stake in its Japanese affiliate, Ciphergen Biosystems K.K., from SC BioSciences. Ciphergen now has full ownership of its Japanese affiliate.
Ciphergen acquired the 30 percent equity stake that was previously held by SC BioSciences, a division of Sumitomo. Ciphergen and SC BioSciences founded the affiliate in 1999 as a joint venture. In August 2002, Ciphergen increased its stake from 30 percent from 70 percent and founded a biomarker discovery center in Japan.
Complete ownership “will give us greater flexibility to expand our operations in Japan going forward, in particular as we capitalize on the opportunities created by our diagnostics division,” Bill Rich, Ciphergen’s president and CEO, said in a statement.
Japanese Pharma Taisho Buys Inpharmatica’s Biopendium License
Inpharmatica of London said this week that Japanese pharma company Taisho Pharmaceuticals has bought a non-exclusive license to Inpharmatica’s online proteome annotation database, Biopendium Online. Taisho is Inpharmatica’s third Biopendium subscriber in Japan, according to Inpharmatica.
Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Riken Purchases TrueClone for Structural Genomics and Proteomics Program
OriGene Technologies this week announced that the Riken protein research group had acquired its TrueClone collection of non-redundant full-length human cDNA clones for use in the PRG’s structural and functional proteomics programs.
Riken, Japan’s Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, said that it will use the clones to help in setting up components of its structural genomics and proteomics program.
The program has the following four goals, according to Riken: to investigate the 3D structures and molecular functions of proteins; to elucidate the molecular mechanisms of biological and medically important phenomena; to develop technologies suitable for large-scale structural biology studies; and to discover chemical compounds to control proteins which lead to drug design.