Jump to content

Invitrogen

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Biologos (talk | contribs) at 15:21, 25 July 2009 (→Customer resources: adspeak). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Invitrogen
File:Invitrogen logo.png
Type Public company
Founded 1987
Location Carlsbad, CA, USA
Key people Gregory T. Lucier
Chairman and CEO
Industry Manufacturing
Products Chemical reagents, procedure kits, specialized laboratory supplies
Revenue $1.15 billion (2006)
Website http://www.invitrogen.com/

Invitrogen Corporation (Nasdaq: IVGN) is a large, multinational biotechnology company headquartered in Carlsbad, California. In November 2008, a merger between Applied Biosystems and Invitrogen [1] was finalized. The new company will be called Life Technologies.

History

Founding

Invitrogen was founded in 1987 by Lyle Turner and Joe Fernandez, and was incorporated in 1989. The company initially found success with its kits for molecular cloning— notably, The Librarian, a kit for making cDNA libraries, and the FastTrack Kit for mRNA isolation from biological samples.

Mergers and acquisitions

Invitrogen's business scope expanded significantly when it acquired the rival biotechnology and cell culture company Life Technologies/GIBCO in 2000. Since then, the company has continued to add technologies through a series of mergers and acquisitions, which have broadened its customer base and strengthened its intellectual property portfolio. Among these, established companies such as Ethrog Biotechnology, Molecular Probes (fluorescence-based detection), Dynal (magnetic bead–based separation), Panvera (proteins and assays for drug screening), InforMax (software for computational biology and bioinformatics), BioSource (cellular pathway analysis), CellzDirect (cell products and services for research) and Zymed and Caltag Laboratories (primary and secondary antibodies) have been brought under the Invitrogen brand.

Portfolio

Key products and technologies

Utilizing this business strategy, Invitrogen now represents a large number of products: Dynabeads magnetic separation technology, GIBCO cell culture media and reagents, SuperScript reverse transcriptase, Platinum Taq polymerase, TOPO cloning and expression products, Novex protein electrophoresis products, and numerous fluorescent reagents such as Qdot nanocrystals and Alexa Fluor and SYBR dyes. Invitrogen currently offers more than 25,000 products and services to support research in cellular analysis, genomics, proteomics, and drug discovery, and has sought to leverage their extensive technology portfolio to address research problems in developing fields, including biodefense and environmental diagnostics, bioinformatics, epigenetics, and stem cell research.

Innovation and impact

Invitrogen has made significant technological contributions in many diverse areas of research and development.[citation needed] Under a contract from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA), the company developed a prototype hand-held pathogen detection system for the detection of multiple toxins such as ricin, staphylococcal enterotoxin, and botulinum toxin, as well as bacteria that cause anthrax, plague, and other diseases, in a single sample.[2] Invitrogen was also awarded a contract to provide kits for detecting possible E. coli O157 contamination in food at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, China.[citation needed] The monitoring program, based on World Health Organization food standards, is conducted by the Beijing Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Olympic Food Safety program. Similarly, the company's PathAlert technology was selected to monitor Yersinia pestis, the causative agent of the plague, at the Torino Winter Games in 2006. Their Qubit platform for RNA, DNA, and protein quantitation was recognized as a "Top 100 Technologically Significant New Product" by R&D Magazine.[3]

Invitrogen develops and introduces stem cell products. Among more than 1,200 products for stem cell research, the company offers an engineered stem cell line (BG01v/hOG) and various STEMPRO products for manual passaging of human embryonic stem cells (hESC), to promote hESC growth and expansion, and to allow scientists to ascertain hESC pluripotency.

Customer resources

Invitrogen offers as online resources the Linnea Online Guides and The Handbook—A Guide to Fluorescent Probes and Labeling Technologies. Linnea guides provide researchers with free access to research protocols, product selection and design tools, pathway maps, and gene information. Now in its tenth edition, The Handbook is designed as a reference for fluorescence detection technology and its application.

Corporate operations

Corporate management

  • Gregory T. Lucier—Chairman and CEO
  • David F. Hoffmeister—Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer
  • Karen S. Gibson—Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer
  • Claude D. Benchimol, Ph.D.—Senior Vice President, Global R & D
  • John A. Cottingham—Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary
  • Peter Leddy, Ph. D.—Senior Vice President, Human Resources
  • Paul Grossman—Senior Vice President, Strategy and Corporate Development
  • Nicolas M. Barthelemy—Senior Vice President, Cell Culture Systems
  • Kip Miller—Senior Vice President, BioDiscovery
  • Amanda Clardy—Vice President, Investor Relations
  • Kelli Richard—Vice President, Finance & Chief Accounting Officer
  • Bernd Brust—Senior Vice President, Global Sales
  • Siddhartha Kadia—Vice President, Global Marketing and eBusiness

Board of Directors

References

  1. ^ [1].
  2. ^ Invitrogen Delivers Prototype Handheld Biothreat Detector [2].
  3. ^ Invitrogen's Qubit Platform Wins 2007 R&D 100 Award [3].
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Invitrogen&oldid=304131878"