Caliper Life Sciences was an American company that produced products and services for life sciences research. The firm, founded in 1995, was based in

Hopkinton, Massachusetts Hopkinton is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, west of Boston. The town is best known as the starting point of the Boston Marathon, held annually on Patriots' Day each April, and as the he ...

, with direct sales, service and application-support operations in countries around the globe. The firm's products include instruments, software and

reagents In chemistry, a reagent ( ) or analytical reagent is a substance or compound added to a system to cause a chemical reaction, or test if one occurs. The terms ''reactant'' and ''reagent'' are often used interchangeably, but reactant specifies a ...

laboratory automation Laboratory automation is a multi-disciplinary strategy to research, develop, optimize and capitalize on technologies in the laboratory that enable new and improved processes. Laboratory automation professionals are academic, commercial and gove ...

tools

microfluidics Microfluidics refers to a system that manipulates a small amount of fluids (10−9 to 10−18 liters) using small channels with sizes of ten to hundreds of micrometres. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves molecular analysis, molecular bi ...

, lab automation and liquid handling, optical imaging technologies, and services for

drug discovery In the fields of medicine, biotechnology, and pharmacology, drug discovery is the process by which new candidate medications are discovered. Historically, drugs were discovered by identifying the active ingredient from traditional remedies or ...

and

drug development Drug development is the process of bringing a new pharmaceutical drug to the market once a lead compound has been identified through the process of drug discovery. It includes preclinical research on microorganisms and animals, filing for regu ...

. The company was acquired by

PerkinElmer PerkinElmer, Inc., previously styled Perkin-Elmer, is an American global corporation that was founded in 1937 and originally focused on precision optics. Over the years it went into and out of several different businesses via acquisitions and di ...

in 2011.

History

Caliper Life Sciences was founded in 1995 by

Larry Bock Lawrence A. Bock (September 21, 1959July 6, 2016) was an American entrepreneur who has aided in starting or financing 50 early-stage growth companies, with a combined market value of more than $70 billion. Early life and education Bock was born ...

and Drs. Michael Knapp, Michael Ramsey and Andreas Manz. as Caliper Technologies, with a focus on microfluidics technology. In 2003, the firm acquired Zymark, a company with a focus in laboratory automation and robotics, and was renamed Caliper Life Sciences. In October 2005, it acquired NovaScreen Biosciences Corporation a privately held CRO offering pre-clinical drug discovery and development services. In August 2006, it acquired Xenogen Corporation, a developer of ''in vivo'' optical imaging systems (IVIS systems) and its division, Xenogen Biosciences, a CRO offering ''in vivo'' transgenic animal production, phenotyping, gene targeting and ''in vivo'' optical imaging services, which was subsequently acquired by Taconic. At the end of October 2008, SOTAX, a tester and software developer of medical devices, acquired Caliper's Pharmaceutical Development & Quality Analysis (PDQ) Division for $15.8 Million. On November 10, 2008, Caliper's Auto Trace(r) line of product was acquired by

Dionex Dionex Corporation is an American company based in Sunnyvale, California. It develops, manufactures, sells, and services analytical chromatography systems for separating, isolating, and identifying the components of chemical mixtures. Such equipmen ...

. In December 2009, Taconic Biosciences acquired XenoGen Biosciences' ''in vivo'' pre-clinical CRO, a subsidiary of Caliper Life Sciences. A year later, in December 2010, Caliper purchased Cambridge Research & Instrumentation Inc. for ~$20 million in a cash and stock deal. In September 2011,

agreed to buy Caliper Life Sciences for $600 million. On November 7, 2011, PerkinElmer completed the acquisition of Caliper Life Sciences for a total net purchase price of approximately $600 million in cash.

Products

Microfluidic platform

Caliper researched and produced

microfluidic Microfluidics refers to a system that manipulates a small amount of fluids (10−9 to 10−18 liters) using small channels with sizes of ten to hundreds of micrometres. It is a multidisciplinary field that involves molecular analysis, molecular bi ...

lab-on-a-chip A lab-on-a-chip (LOC) is a device that integrates one or several laboratory functions on a single integrated circuit (commonly called a "chip") of only millimeters to a few square centimeters to achieve automation and high-throughput screening. ...

technology, used for drug screening and profiling and for

DNA Deoxyribonucleic acid (; DNA) is a polymer composed of two polynucleotide chains that coil around each other to form a double helix. The polymer carries genetic instructions for the development, functioning, growth and reproduction of al ...

RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule that is essential for most biological functions, either by performing the function itself (non-coding RNA) or by forming a template for the production of proteins (messenger RNA). RNA and deoxyrib ...

and

protein analysis Proteomics is the large-scale study of proteins. Proteins are vital macromolecules of all living organisms, with many functions such as the formation of structural fibers of muscle tissue, enzymatic digestion of food, or synthesis and replicatio ...

Optical imaging

Through its acquisition of Xenogen Corporation in 2006, the firm developed of

in vivo Studies that are ''in vivo'' (Latin for "within the living"; often not italicized in English) are those in which the effects of various biological entities are tested on whole, living organisms or cells, usually animals, including humans, an ...

biophotonic imaging technology, producing both biophotonic and fluorescent imaging technologies.

Lab automation

The firm produced other

robotic Robotics is the interdisciplinary study and practice of the design, construction, operation, and use of robots. Within mechanical engineering, robotics is the design and construction of the physical structures of robots, while in computer s ...

systems is to automate

solid phase extraction Solid-phase extraction (SPE) is a solid-liquid extractive technique, by which compounds that are dissolved or suspended in a liquid mixture are separated, isolated or purified, from other compounds in this mixture, according to their physical and ...

and several liquid handling and plate management systems to automate drug discovery and development.

Discovery outsourcing

Caliper's Discovery Alliances & Services division (CDAS) was created from the acquisitions of NovaScreen, a provider of

in vitro ''In vitro'' (meaning ''in glass'', or ''in the glass'') Research, studies are performed with Cell (biology), cells or biological molecules outside their normal biological context. Colloquially called "test-tube experiments", these studies in ...

discovery services. The ''in vitro'' service arm of CDAS included ''in vitro'' drug discovery and development, including screening

assays An assay is an investigative (analytic) procedure in laboratory medicine, mining, pharmacology, environmental biology and molecular biology for qualitatively assessing or quantitatively measuring the presence, amount, or functional activity of ...

to define the mode of action, side effect profiles, selectivity, and other relevant activities of drug candidates. ''In vivo'' capabilities included: non-invasive ''in vivo''

optical imaging Medical optical imaging is the use of light as an investigational imaging technique for medical applications, pioneered by American Physical Chemist Britton Chance. Examples include optical microscopy, spectroscopy, endoscopy, scanning laser o ...

, OncoMouse studies, and ''in vivo'' compound evaluations for safety assessment and

drug repositioning Drug repositioning (also called drug repurposing) involves the investigation of existing drugs for new therapeutic purposes. Repurposing achievements Repurposing generics can have groundbreaking effects for patients: 35% of 'transformative' ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Caliper, A PerkinElmer Company
Company Profile at Google Finance. Biotechnology companies of the United States Life sciences industry Medical technology companies of the United States Biotechnology companies established in 1995 1995 establishments in Massachusetts Manufacturing companies established in 1995