Mass High Tech - October 13, 2008

BioTrove and BD form ADME assay agreement
Mass High Tech

Woburn biotech company BioTrove Inc. and New Jersey drug delivery tech firm Becton, Dickinson and Co. (BD) have entered an agreement combining the former’s mass spectrometry technology with the latter company’s sales and support expertise in high-throughput in vitro ADME assays. As a result, the Becton, Dickinson BD CYP450 Inhibition Screening Service with BioTrove’s RapidFire Technology offers one assay, instead of multiple ones, for drug discovery and development.

The RapidFire mass spectrometry-based screening and analysis system is designed to help pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies analyze and develop newly discovered drugs in order to understand drug-drug interactions.

This summer, BioTrove opened a few new offices, including a European office in London and a new facility in San Carlos, Calif.

BioTrove (Nasdaq: BTRV) develops two major technologies: OpenArray, for genomic research in agriculture, public health and disease research; and RapidFire, for enabling fast drug discoveries.

In early July, BioTrove reported it won a two-year National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant with partner Gene Express Inc. of Wilmington, N.C., to further their proposed novel research of genetic biomarkers for lung cancer.

BioTrove generated $4.8 million in revenue last year and posted a net loss of nearly $16 million, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.