October 1, 2012 (Vol. 32, No. 17)

World Leaders in Live Content Imaging

Essen BioScience is a world leader in the field of cell-based in vitro assays and instrumentation. In its recent history, Essen has concentrated on imaging products with the release of the IncuCyte™ in 2006, and very recently with the release of the second-generation IncuCyte ZOOM™ in 2012. Along with a comprehensive line of CellPlayer™ kinetic assays and reagents and a renowned global Discovery Services team, Essen BioScience provides quantitative assay solutions in an array of research areas including oncology, neuroscience, and ion channels.

Traditional high-content imaging assays are conducted on live cells, however the assay readout is typically a single predetermined time point. With IncuCyte ZOOM, Essen offers a new type of imaging, Live Content Imaging, where the acquisition, analysis, and quantification of images are taken from living cells that remain unperturbed by the detection method, allowing for repeated measurements over long periods of time (days to weeks). This approach allows researchers to follow assays in real time, and further does not require the determination of an assay end point a priori.

An enabling aspect of the IncuCyte ZOOM technology is that the system acquires images automatically from within the user’s cell culture incubator, collecting biological image data around the clock on multiple vessels without removing the cells from their preferred physiological environment. The IncuCyte ZOOM is also equipped with integrated software providing real-time analysis of the biological processes under observation. The IncuCyte ZOOM features multifluorescent colors, support of a broad range of microscope objectives, and enhanced speed to handle the acquisition and processing demands of real-time image acquisition and analysis. The CellPlayer reagents include targeted fluorescent probes and fully validated GFP/RFP nuclear labeled stable cell lines. These reagents are nonperturbing to cell health and superior to traditional organic dye labels for long-term imaging assays. Together, the IncuCyte ZOOM and suite of CellPlayer assays and reagents provide a fully integrated solution for quantitative, kinetic biology.

About the Company

Essen BioScience is a privately held company headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan with wholly owned subsidiaries in the United Kingdom and Japan.

Essen has a tradition of inventing break-through technologies for the life science industry including products such as FLIPR, IonWorks, and the IncuCyte family of Live Content Imaging systems. To date, these inventions have accounted for approximately one billion dollars in worldwide sales. Over the last few years, Essen BioScience has expanded its offerings beyond instrumentation, building a global cell biology team and a range of capabilities including reagent development, fee-for-service screening, and drug discovery partnerships. The combination of drug discovery and instrumentation experience makes Essen BioScience a unique provider of life science research tools and services.

Markets Served

Essen BioScience offers powerful solutions for life science researchers in academia, biotech, and pharmaceutical companies throughout the world.

The broad applicability of the IncuCyte ZOOM and CellPlayer kinetic assays make them ideal solutions for institutions of all sizes to streamline productivity in the lab, get better quantitative results from experiments, and make discoveries that were simply impossible with previously existing technology.

Capabilities

Essen BioScience’s inventions have spanned nearly 20 years and are recognized as “first in class” in several technology areas, including optical cell-based screening (FLIPR, 1994), high-throughput electrophysiology (IonWorks, 2002), and kinetic imaging (IncuCyte, 2006; IncuCyte ZOOM, 2012). Along with its engineering group and instrumentation offerings, the company’s senior staff of biologists possesses strong backgrounds in molecular and cellular biology as well as drug discovery, and is currently engaged in multiple drug discovery outsourcing and partnership projects.

Essen BioScience

300 West Morgan Road Ann Arbor, Michigan

Phone: 734.769.1600

Website: www.essenbioscience.com

Date Founded: 1999

Number of Employees: Over 50

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