Standard BioTools Inc. (formerly Fluidigm) is an American company engaged in the design, manufacture and sale of biological research equipment based on

integrated fluidic circuit Integrated fluidic circuit (IFC) is a type of integrated circuit (IC) using fluids. See also *Fluidics Fluidics, or fluidic logic, is the use of a fluid to perform analog or digital operations similar to those performed with electronics. The ...

technology. The company's founders leveraged their semiconductor experience to create integrated circuits that carried fluids rather than electrons. In 2009, the company was described as "the world's leading manufacturer of

microfluidic device 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 ...

s." Among the applications to which the company's products are put to use are

protein crystallization Protein crystallization is the process of formation of a regular array of individual protein molecules stabilized by crystal contacts. If the crystal is sufficiently ordered, it will diffract. Some proteins naturally form crystalline arrays, lik ...

genotyping Genotyping is the process of determining differences in the genetic make-up ( genotype) of an individual by examining the individual's DNA sequence using biological assays and comparing it to another individual's sequence or a reference sequence. ...

DNA analysis Genetic testing, also known as DNA testing, is used to identify changes in DNA sequence or chromosome structure. Genetic testing can also include measuring the results of genetic changes, such as RNA analysis as an output of gene expression, or ...

and PCR.

Business model

Its products leverage the capabilities of

multilayer soft lithography Multilayer soft lithography (MSL) is a fabrication process in which microscopic chambers, channels, valves and vias are molded within bonded layers of elastomer.Commercial PDMS stampscamold materials such as optical adhesivein a sequential process ...

to create

s: specifically, technology developed by one of the co-founders and branded "Integrated Fluidic Circuitry". It is a

public company A public company is a company whose ownership is organized via shares of stock which are intended to be freely traded on a stock exchange or in over-the-counter markets. A public (publicly traded) company can be listed on a stock exchange (l ...

traded on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

stock exchange A stock exchange, securities exchange, or bourse is an exchange where stockbrokers and traders can buy and sell securities, such as shares of stock, bonds and other financial instruments. Stock exchanges may also provide facilities for th ...

, previously under the

ticker symbol A ticker symbol or stock symbol is an abbreviation used to uniquely identify publicly traded shares of a particular stock on a particular stock market. In short, ticker symbols are arrangements of symbols or characters (generally Latin letters ...

FLDM, and then under LAB. Fluidigm has a number of academic partners whose engagement is aimed to provide a wow factor to exemplar product uses; partners include

Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute The Wellcome Sanger Institute, previously known as The Sanger Centre and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, is a non-profit British genomics and genetics research institute, primarily funded by the Wellcome Trust. It is located on the Wellcome G ...

, the

Broad Institute The Eli and Edythe L. Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard (IPA: , pronunciation respelling: ), often referred to as the Broad Institute, is a biomedical and genomic research center located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U ...

, the

Genome Institute of Singapore The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) is a statutory board under the Ministry of Trade and Industry of Singapore. The agency supports R&D that is aligned to areas of competitive advantage and national needs for Singapore. ...

and

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

. Among companies which include "integrated microfluidic technology" into their products, the only competitor which a market focus on biotechnology as of 2011 appeared to be

RainDance Technologies Jonathan Marc Rothberg (born April 28, 1963) is an American scientist and entrepreneur. He is best known for his contributions to next-generation DNA sequencing. He works and resides in Guilford, Connecticut. Early life Rothberg was born in New ...

. Going into 2015, the company is making an effort to infuse

industrial design Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...

aesthetic Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed th ...

and

customer centric Customer satisfaction (often abbreviated as CSAT) is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of ...

ity principles to help distinguish their products from those of competitors and generate a distinctive brand experience for users.

History

The company was founded in 1999 as "Mycometrix" by

Stephen Quake Stephen Ronald Quake (born 1969) is an American scientist, inventor and entrepreneur. He earned his B.S. in physics and M.S. in mathematics from Stanford in 1991 and his D.Phil. in physics from Oxford University in 1994 as a Marshall Scholar. Hi ...

and Gajus Worthington. The company was formed to commercialize technology developed by Quake at the

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

referred to as microfluidic

large-scale integration An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit (also referred to as an IC, a chip, or a microchip) is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece (or "chip") of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of tiny M ...

and "branded" under the name

Integrated Fluidic Circuit Integrated fluidic circuit (IFC) is a type of integrated circuit (IC) using fluids. See also *Fluidics Fluidics, or fluidic logic, is the use of a fluid to perform analog or digital operations similar to those performed with electronics. The ...

s. Richard DeLateur came on as

chief financial officer The chief financial officer (CFO) is an officer of a company or organization that is assigned the primary responsibility for managing the company's finances, including financial planning, management of financial risks, record-keeping, and financ ...

in 2006; he was a 20-year veteran of Intel. At the time, the company's

chief executive officer A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a central executive officer (CEO), chief administrator officer (CAO) or just chief executive (CE), is one of a number of corporate executives charged with the management of an organization especially ...

n (CEO) remained Gajus Worthington. As of 2015, Worthington remained with the company as

president President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) *President (education), a leader of a college or university *President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...

and CEO, while Quake was a member of the company's scientific advisory board as of 2011. The company completed a successful

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

(IPO) in February 2011, raising about $75 million. This followed a failed, ill-timed IPO in 2008. As of the 2011 IPO, Fluidigm had not yet become profitable, but had accumulated nearly $200 million in debt. Following a $250 million investment from Casdin Capital and

Viking Global Investors Viking Global Investors is an American-based hedge fund based in Greenwich, Connecticut, which specialises in early stage and late stage ventures. History It was established in October 1999 by its CEO and risk manager, Ole Andreas Halvorsen, Br ...

in April 2022, Fluidigm changed its name to Standard BioTools.

Operations

At the end of 2014, Fluidigm had a headcount of 500 personnel. In addition to its headquarters and laboratory facility in

South San Francisco South San Francisco is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States, located on the San Francisco Peninsula in the San Francisco Bay Area. The city is colloquially known as "South City". The population was 66,105 at the 2020 census. ...

, California, which it expanded in 2014, the company in 2005 established the first

biochip In molecular biology, biochips are engineered substrates ("miniaturized laboratories") that can host large numbers of simultaneous biochemical reactions. One of the goals of biochip technology is to efficiently screen large numbers of biological a ...

manufacturing facility in Singapore. The Singapore facility was in 2009 led by Grace Yow, who also held the position of Fluidigm vice president of worldwide manufacturing.

Products

Fluidigm's products typically consist of single-use

s, instrumentation for handling biochips and software for instrument operation and data collection and analysis. No Fluidigm products had been approved for clinical use in the United States as of 2009. Fluidigm's first commercial product was aimed at the

market and was launched in 2003 under the brand "Topaz". The company's second marketed product targeted high-throughput

DNA amplification Gene amplification refers to a number of natural and artificial processes by which the number of copies of a gene is increased "without a proportional increase in other genes". Artificial DNA amplification In research or diagnosis DNA amplificati ...

and was launched in 2006 under the brand "BioMark". By 2013, BioMark had been adapted to

real-time PCR A real-time polymerase chain reaction (real-time PCR, or qPCR) is a laboratory technique of molecular biology based on the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). It monitors the amplification of a targeted DNA molecule during the PCR (i.e., in real ...

and was capable of running >9000 reactions in parallel. A high-throughput

system, FLUIDIGM EPI, was introduced in 2008. The C1 Single-Cell Auto Prep, or C1 system, was released in the early 2000s aimed at delivering 96 single-cell capture and processing events in parallel. One aim of development forward from the C1 system is increasing parallel throughput. This initial line of instruments purportedly cost about $200,000 apiece to purchase in 2011. One reported use for the instruments is "to identify signatures of

induced pluripotent stem cell Induced pluripotent stem cells (also known as iPS cells or iPSCs) are a type of pluripotent stem cell that can be generated directly from a somatic cell. The iPSC technology was pioneered by Shinya Yamanaka's lab in Kyoto, Japan, who showed in ...

s". In May 2021, Fluidigm introduced CyTOF XT, a forth-generation CyTOF platform that enables system-level biology at single-cell resolution, designed for clinical trials. CyTOF technology provides a high-resolution proteomic profile of each cell, which distinguishes it from all other cells and reveals the heterogeneity of the sample. Fluidigm also announced proteomics sample barcoding.

Notes

References

* ''Note: the book version viewed did not include the entire chapter cited here, only pages 225, 226 and 227.'' *

External links

{{Authority control Research support companies Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Companies based in South San Francisco, California American companies established in 1999 Technology companies established in 1999 1999 establishments in California Companies listed on the Nasdaq