Immunoassay products will be developed on Luminex xMAP.
Rules-Based Medicine (RBM) is collaborating with EMD Chemicals to provide optimized kits for the identification of biomarkers. The immunoassay products will be developed on the Luminex® xMAP® platform. On December 10, EMD Chemicals, a subsidiary of Merck KGaA, reportedly licensed the Luminex technology.
Under the terms of the agreement with RBM, EMD/Merck gains exclusive distribution rights to a large catalog of quantitative protein multiplex assays.
The goal of the partnership is to supply kits that enable researchers from pharmaceutical and biotech firms as well as in academia to measure hundreds of important biomarkers from serum, plasma, and other biological fluids.
“While we’ve been very successful in developing these assays and providing testing services to our clients, we realized that we needed to satisfy the demands of the broader research market by packaging our immunoassay products as kits,” notes T. Craig Benson, CEO of RBM. “EMD/Merck provides the international sales and marketing infrastructure to distribute these kits, cobranded with their well-known and respected Novagen brand.”
The kits are scheduled for availability in mid-2008, according to the collaborators.
RBM and EMD/Merck will also collaborate to design new products that meet the evolving requirements of their customers.
