Caliper, A PerkinElmer Company produces products and services for life sciences research. The firm, founded in 1995, is based in

Hopkinton, Massachusetts Hopkinton is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, west of Boston. The town is best known as the starting point of the Boston Marathon, held annually on Patriots' Day each April, and as the headquarters for the Dell EMC corp ...

with direct sales, service and application-support operations in countries around the globe. The firm's products include instruments, software and

reagents In chemistry, a reagent ( ) or analytical reagent is a substance or compound added to a system to cause a chemical reaction, or test if one occurs. The terms ''reactant'' and ''reagent'' are often used interchangeably, but reactant specifies a ...

laboratory automation Laboratory automation is a multi-disciplinary strategy to research, develop, optimize and capitalize on technologies in the laboratory that enable new and improved processes. Laboratory automation professionals are academic, commercial and gover ...

tools

microfluidics Microfluidics refers to the behavior, precise control, and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small scale (typically sub-millimeter) at which surface forces dominate volumetric forces. It is a multidisciplinary field th ...

, lab automation & liquid handling, optical imaging technologies, and services for drug discovery &

drug development Drug development is the process of bringing a new pharmaceutical drug to the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery. It includes preclinical research on microorganisms and animals, filing for re ...

Products

Microfluidic platform

Caliper is a pioneer in

microfluidic Microfluidics refers to the behavior, precise control, and manipulation of fluids that are geometrically constrained to a small scale (typically sub-millimeter) at which surface forces dominate volumetric forces. It is a multidisciplinary field tha ...

lab-on-a-chip A lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single integrated circuit (commonly called a "chip") of only millimeters to a few square centimeters to achieve automation and high-throughput screening. ...

technology. Its

products, including a proprietary microfluidic sipper chip, are a high-throughput complement to the firm's planar chips. The microfluidic technology forms the basis of the firm's reader systems used for drug screening and profiling and for molecular biology DNA, RNA and

protein analysis Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital parts of living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replication of DNA. In ...

Optical imaging

Through its acquisition of Xenogen Corporation in 2006, the firm is now a developer of

in vivo Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, and ...

biophotonic imaging technology, which allows for real-time, non-invasive exploration of genes , proteins,

pathogens In biology, a pathogen ( el, πάθος, "suffering", "passion" and , "producer of") in the oldest and broadest sense, is any organism or agent that can produce disease. A pathogen may also be referred to as an infectious agent, or simply a ger ...

, and tumor cells in living animals. It offers a range of patented biophotonic and fluorescent imaging technologies, as well as

genetically modified animal Genetically modified animals are animals that have been genetically modified for a variety of purposes including producing drugs, enhancing yields, increasing resistance to disease, etc. The vast majority of genetically modified animals are at th ...

programs. Its imaging product lines include a suite of IVIS imaging systems, many measuring both bio luminescence and fluorescence, ''in vivo'' imaging reagents, specialized light producing animal models, and genetic modification programs for pharmaceutical and biotechnology research and development.

Lab automation and liquid handling

Caliper produced the world's first lab robotic system, the Zymark Zymate. In January 2009, it produced the benchtop system Zephyr Genomics Workstation for automating routine processes for molecular biology such as nucleic acid purification, reaction setup and normalization. The firm produces other

robotic Robotics is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science and engineering. Robotics involves design, construction, operation, and use of robots. The goal of robotics is to design machines that can help and assist humans. Robotics integrate ...

systems is to automate

solid phase extraction Solid-phase extraction (SPE) is an extractive technique by which compounds that are dissolved or suspended in a liquid mixture are separated from other compounds in the mixture according to their physical and chemical properties. Analytical labor ...

and several liquid handling and plate management systems to automate drug discovery and development. It also custom designs integrated vendor-neutral instruments and software.

Discovery and development outsourcing

Caliper's Discovery Alliances & Services division (CDAS) was created from the acquisitions of NovaScreen, a provider of

in vitro ''In vitro'' (meaning in glass, or ''in the glass'') studies are performed with microorganisms, cells, or biological molecules outside their normal biological context. Colloquially called " test-tube experiments", these studies in biology ...

discovery services. The ''in vitro'' service arm of CDAS includes ''in vitro'' drug discovery and development , including screening

assays An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of a ...

to define the mode of action, side effect profiles, selectivity, and other relevant activities of drug candidates. ''In vivo'' capabilities include: non-invasive ''in vivo''

optical imaging Medical optical imaging is the use of light as an investigational imaging technique for medical applications. Examples include optical microscopy, spectroscopy, endoscopy, scanning laser ophthalmoscopy, laser Doppler imaging, and optical coherence ...

, OncoMouse studies, and ''in vivo'' compound evaluations for safety assessment and

drug repositioning Drug repositioning (also called drug repurposing) involves the investigation of existing drugs for new therapeutic purposes. Repurposing achievements A number of successes have been achieved, the foremost including sildenafil (Viagra) for ere ...

History

Caliper Life Sciences was founded in 1995 by

Larry Bock Lawrence A. Bock (September 21, 1959July 6, 2016) was an American entrepreneur who has aided in starting or financing 50 early-stage growth companies, with a combined market value of more than $70 billion. Personal life Bock was born in Brookl ...

and Drs. Michael Knapp, Michael Ramsey and Andreas Manz. as Caliper Technologies, with a focus on microfluidics technology. In 2003, the firm acquired Zymark, a leader in laboratory automation and robotics, and was renamed Caliper Life Sciences. In October 2005, it acquired NovaScreen Biosciences Corporation a privately held CRO offering pre-clinical drug discovery and development services. In August 2006, it acquired Xenogen Corporation, a developer of ''in vivo'' optical imaging systems (IVIS systems) and its division, Xenogen Biosciences, a CRO offering ''in vivo'' transgenic animal production, phenotyping, gene targeting and ''in vivo'' optical imaging services. At the end of October 2008, SOTAX,a tester and software developer of medical devices, acquired Caliper's Pharmaceutical Development & Quality Analysis (PDQ) Division for $15.8 Million. On November 10, 2008, Caliper's Auto Trace(r) line of product was acquired by

Dionex Dionex Corporation is an American company based in Sunnyvale, California. It develops, manufactures, sells, and services analytical chromatography systems for separating, isolating, and identifying the components of chemical mixtures. Such equipmen ...

. In December 2009,

Taconic Biosciences Taconic Biosciences is a private biotechnology company specializing in genetically engineered mouse and rat models, microbiome, immuno-oncology mouse models, and integrated model design and breeding services. The company was founded in 1952 as Taco ...

acquired XenoGen Biosciences ''in vivo'' pre-clinical CRO subsidiary of Caliper Life Sciences. A year later in December 2010, Caliper purchased Cambridge Research & Instrumentation Inc. for about $20 million in a cash and stock deal. In September 2011, PerkinElmer agreed to buy Caliper Life Sciences for $600 million. On November 7, 2011, PerkinElmer completed the acquisition of Caliper Life Sciences for a total net purchase price of approximately $600 million in cash.

References

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External links

Caliper, A PerkinElmer Company
Company Profile at Google Finance. Biotechnology companies of the United States Life sciences industry Medical technology companies of the United States Biotechnology companies established in 1995 1995 establishments in Massachusetts Manufacturing companies established in 1995