A Medical Device Daily

BioTrove (Woburn, Massachusetts reported that it is forming a subsidiary named Biocius Life Sciences to hold the assets of the RapidFire business unit. The company said that Biocius would be spun out as an independent operating company upon the completion of Life Technologies' (Carlsbad, California) proposed acquisition of BioTrove, which was also reported Tuesday.

The current BioTrove investors will continue to support the new subsidiary and proposed spin-out, the company said. Led by CEO/chairman Jeffrey Leathe, RapidFire's team of scientists and engineers will also remain intact, BioTrove said.

"Effective at the closing of the proposed sale of BioTrove to Life Technologies, Biocius, through the RapidFire brand, will intensify its focus on pioneering new efforts toward eliminating bottlenecks in the drug discovery pipeline," Leathe said. "We plan to expand our portfolio of products and service capabilities – creating additional value for our many pharma and biotech customers. Biocius has a strong pipeline of products and services and will be well capitalized and positioned in the marketplace to continue as a technology leader in drug discovery solutions."

According to the company, RapidFire almost doubled its 2008 sales, launching the RF 300 system for in vitro ADME; expanding geographically by installing several systems across Europe and Canada, and by entering a distribution arrangement in Asia.