Overview

Founded in March 2001as a spin-off from Shimadzu Corp., of Kyoto, Japan, Shimadzu Biotech is an effort to provide solutions-based offerings to speed the progress of biotechnology research. The company has products covering technologies from DNA sequencing to high-performance mass spectrometry, to provide an integrated approach to the proteomics and genomics markets. It also supports other applications, including microsatellite DNA and SNP analysis for drug discovery.

The company's MALDI mass spectrometry systems can be used in the identification and characterization of large protein populations in subcellular, tissue and whole-organism biochemistry, as well as in SNP analysis. The company's LC Mass Spectrometry system allows for high-throughput detection of biomolecules, pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals. The BioSpec-mini is a compact spectrophotometer designed for the quantitation of DNA and RNA.

The company has formed a proteomics alliance with Proteome Systems and Sigma Aldrich to develop integrated practical proteomics solutions.

Partners

Shimadzu Biotech has a collaboration with Proteome Systems, of Sydney, Australia, to develop a chemical printer. Chemical printing is a technology for protein identification and characterization based on microfluidic printing onto proteins. The company also has a multimillion-dollar agreement to supply mass spectrometers to LumiCyte Inc., of Fremont, Calif.