BILLERICA, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Millipore Corporation, a leading provider of technologies, tools and services for the global life science industry, today announced that it will collaborate with Roka Bioscience, Inc. to develop molecular assays and portable instruments for biopharmaceutical production. As recently announced by Gen-Probe Incorporated (NASDAQ: GPRO - News), Roka Bioscience is a new, independent company created through the spin-off of Gen-Probe’s industrial assets.
Millipore and Gen-Probe formed an exclusive partnership in 2005 to develop faster, more reliable and sensitive tests for contaminants commonly found in pharmaceutical and biotechnology manufacturing processes. Last year, they introduced the MilliPROBE® system, which is the first solution of its kind and combines Millipore’s leading, industry-accepted sample prep methodologies with Gen-Probe’s advanced, proven nucleic acid technologies to deliver both speed and sensitivity in one microbial screening tool. The companies currently have one assay on the market for Pseudomonas aeruginosa and are developing a second assay for Mycoplasma that remains on track to be introduced early next year.
The revolutionary MilliPROBE system uses Real-Time Transcription-Mediated Amplification (TMA) technology to detect targeted microbial contamination within four hours compared to days or weeks required to generate results using traditional culture-based technology. Faster detection allows biopharmaceutical manufacturers to take corrective action earlier in their production process, which limits the impact of a contamination event, reduces downstream processing risks, optimizes product yields, and improves final product quality. These improvements enable operational efficiency and lower manufacturing cost for biopharmaceutical manufacturers.
“We believe that the creation of Roka Bioscience will help us to accelerate the development of further MilliPROBE assays due to the focus and investment they will bring to the partnership,” said Jean-Paul Mangeolle, President of Millipore’s Bioprocess Division. “Roka Bioscience’s investment into a fully integrated, portable testing instrument will also bring us closer to our vision of providing rapid tests that can be conducted right on the manufacturing floor. We remain very excited about the market potential for the MilliPROBE platform and about the major milestone that the launch of our Mycoplasma assay will represent for our partnership.”
About Millipore
Millipore is a life science leader providing cutting-edge technologies, tools, and services for bioscience research and biopharmaceutical manufacturing. As a strategic partner, we collaborate with customers to confront the world’s challenging human health issues. From research to development to production, our scientific expertise and innovative solutions help customers tackle their most complex problems and achieve their goals. Millipore Corporation is an S&P 500 company with more than 5,900 employees in 30 countries worldwide.
Advancing Life Science Together™
Research. Development. Production.
Forward Looking Statements:
The matters discussed herein, as well as in future oral and written statements by management of Millipore Corporation that are forward-looking statements, are based on current management expectations that involve substantial risks and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from the results expressed in, or implied by, these forward-looking statements.
Potential risks and uncertainties that could affect Millipore’s future operating results include, without limitation, failure to achieve design wins into our pharmaceutical and biotechnology customers’ manufacturing design phase for a particular drug; delay, suspension or termination of a customer’s volume production; lack of availability of raw materials or component products on a timely basis; regulatory delay in the approval of customers’ therapeutics; limitations on cash flow available for operations and investment due to increased debt service obligations; the inability to establish and maintain necessary product and process quality levels; reduced demand for animal-derived cell culture products; the inability to realize the expected benefits of development, marketing, licensing and other alliances; competitive factors such as new membrane or chromatography technology; the inability to achieve anticipated cost benefits of our supply chain initiatives; risks relating to our concentration of principal manufacturing operations; the inability to utilize technology in current or planned products due to overriding rights by third parties; potential environmental liabilities; conditions in the economy in general and in the bioscience and bioprocess markets in particular; foreign exchange fluctuations; reduced private and government research funding; exposure to product liability claims; and difficulties inherent in transferring or outsourcing of manufacturing operations. Please refer to our filings with the SEC, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K, for more information on these and other risks that could cause actual results to differ.
Contact:
Millipore Corporation Joshua Young 978-715-1527 800-225-3384 Director, Investor Relations joshua_young@millipore.com or Karen Hall 978-715–1567 Director, Corporate Communications karen_hall@millipore.com
