Six reasons why customer service is make-or-break for your lab instruments business

DANIEL FANKHAUSER | July 4, 2019 | 147 views

Customer service has become a crucial battleground for all types of industries, including life science, medical diagnostics and pharma. A study by NewVoiceMedia1 revealed that customer service plays a significant part in overall customer experience, which is costing companies more than $75 billion a year. Some 67 percent of customers have become “serial switchers,” willing to switch brands because of a poor customer experience, according to the study. Lackluster customer service almost guarantees that the next time your customers have a need they will look elsewhere.

Spotlight

Dendreon

Dendreon Corporation is a biotechnology company targeting cancer and transforming lives through the discovery, development, commercialization and manufacturing of novel therapeutics. The Company applies its expertise in antigen identification, engineering and cell processing to produce active cellular immunotherapy product candidates designed to stimulate an immune response in a variety of tumor types. Dendreon's first autologous cellular immunotherapy product, PROVENGE(R) (sipuleucel-T), was approved by the FDA in April 2010 for the treatment of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic, castrate-resistant (hormone-refractory) prostate cancer. Dendreon also is developing an orally-available small molecule that targets TRPM8 that could be applicable to multiple types of cancer. The Company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and is traded on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol DNDN.

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MedTech

Top 10 biotech IPOs in 2019

Article | July 12, 2022

The big question at the start of 2019 was whether the IPO window would stay open for biotech companies, particularly those seeking to pull off ever-larger IPOs at increasingly earlier stages of development. The short answer is yes—kind of. Here’s the long answer: In the words of Renaissance Capital, the IPO market had “a mostly good year.” The total number of deals fell to 159 from 192 the year before, but technology and healthcare companies were standout performers. The latter—which include biotech, medtech and diagnostics companies—led the pack, making up 43% of all IPOs in 2019. By Renaissance’s count, seven companies went public at valuations exceeding $1 billion, up from five the year before

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MedTech

Cell Out? Lysate-Based Expression an Option for Personalized Meds

Article | July 16, 2022

Cell-free expression (CFE) is the practice of making a protein without using a living cell. In contrast with cell line-based methods, production is achieved using a fluid containing biological components extracted from a cell, i.e., a lysate. CFE offers potential advantages for biopharma according to Philip Probert, PhD, a senior scientist at the Centre for Process Innovation in the U.K.

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Medical

Closing bacterial genomes from the human gut microbiome using long-read sequencing

Article | July 14, 2022

In our lab, we focus on the impact of the gut microbiome on human health and disease. To evaluate this relationship, it’s important to understand the particular functions that different bacteria have. As bacteria are able to exchange, duplicate, and rearrange their genes in ways that directly affect their phenotypes, complete bacterial genomes assembled directly from human samples are essential to understand the strain variation and potential functions of the bacteria we host. Advances in the microbiome space have allowed for the de novo assembly of microbial genomes directly from metagenomes via short-read sequencing, assembly of reads into contigs, and binning of contigs into putative genome drafts. This is advantageous because it allows us to discover microbes without culturing them, directly from human samples and without reference databases. In the past year, there have been a number of tour de force efforts to broadly characterize the human gut microbiota through the creation of such metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs)[1–4]. These works have produced hundreds of thousands of microbial genomes that vastly increase our understanding of the human gut. However, challenges in the assembly of short reads has limited our ability to correctly assemble repeated genomic elements and place them into genomic context. Thus, existing MAGs are often fragmented and do not include mobile genetic elements, 16S rRNA sequences, and other elements that are repeated or have high identity within and across bacterial genomes.

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Selexis Cell Line Development Strategies

Article | February 11, 2020

In today’s biotechnology landscape, to be competitive, meet regulations, and achieve market demands, “we must apply Bioprocessing 4.0,” said Igor Fisch, PhD, CEO, Selexis. In fact, in the last decade, “Selexis has evolved from cloning by limiting dilution to automated cell selection to nanofluidic chips and from monoclonality assessment by statistical calculation to proprietary bioinformatic analysis,” he added. Single-use processing systems are an expanding part of the biomanufacturing world; as such, they are a major component of Bioprocessing 4.0. “At Selexis, we use single use throughout our cell line development workflow. Currently, we have incorporated single-use automated bioprocessing systems such as ambr® and the Beacon® optofluidic platform for accelerated cell line development. By using these systems and optimizing our parameters, we were able to achieve high titers in shake flasks. Additionally, the Beacon systems integrate miniaturized cell culture with high-throughput liquid handling automation and cell imaging. This allows us to control, adjust, and monitor programs at the same time,” noted Fisch.

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Spotlight

Dendreon

Dendreon Corporation is a biotechnology company targeting cancer and transforming lives through the discovery, development, commercialization and manufacturing of novel therapeutics. The Company applies its expertise in antigen identification, engineering and cell processing to produce active cellular immunotherapy product candidates designed to stimulate an immune response in a variety of tumor types. Dendreon's first autologous cellular immunotherapy product, PROVENGE(R) (sipuleucel-T), was approved by the FDA in April 2010 for the treatment of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic metastatic, castrate-resistant (hormone-refractory) prostate cancer. Dendreon also is developing an orally-available small molecule that targets TRPM8 that could be applicable to multiple types of cancer. The Company is headquartered in Seattle, Washington and is traded on the Nasdaq Global Market under the symbol DNDN.

Related News

Researchers identify CTLA-4 response marker

European Biotechnology | September 16, 2019

The research team headed by Simon Heideger and Hendrick Poeck from Technical University of Munich together with colleagues from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, provided new evidence that activation of the RNA-sensing molecule RIG-I on tumour cells is critical for responsiveness to checkpoint blockade. As only 30% of cancer patients respond to checkpoint inhibitor therapy while some show severe side effects, RIG-I expression might identify the patients benefiting most from this sort of cancer immunotherapy. Secondly, therapies, which combine a checkpoint blocker and a RIG-I agonist, might help boost the effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitors and, thus, enhance the response rate to cancer immunotherapy. Specifically, Heideger et al. provided preclinical evidence that a combination of a RIG-I oligonucleotide agonist and a CTLA-4 checkpoint blocker prolonged survival in several preclinical cancer models. Furthermore, high expression of DDX58, the gene encoding RIG-1, in cell cultures made from samples of melanoma patients predicted improved survival under CTLA-4 therapy. The authors suggest that testing tumour cells from humans for susceptibility to RIG-I-driven cell death might serve as a biomarker to predict treatment outcomes of CTLA-4 checkpoint inhibition.

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Researchers identify CTLA-4 response marker

European Biotechnology | September 16, 2019

The research team headed by Simon Heideger and Hendrick Poeck from Technical University of Munich together with colleagues from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, New York, provided new evidence that activation of the RNA-sensing molecule RIG-I on tumour cells is critical for responsiveness to checkpoint blockade. As only 30% of cancer patients respond to checkpoint inhibitor therapy while some show severe side effects, RIG-I expression might identify the patients benefiting most from this sort of cancer immunotherapy. Secondly, therapies, which combine a checkpoint blocker and a RIG-I agonist, might help boost the effectiveness of checkpoint inhibitors and, thus, enhance the response rate to cancer immunotherapy. Specifically, Heideger et al. provided preclinical evidence that a combination of a RIG-I oligonucleotide agonist and a CTLA-4 checkpoint blocker prolonged survival in several preclinical cancer models. Furthermore, high expression of DDX58, the gene encoding RIG-1, in cell cultures made from samples of melanoma patients predicted improved survival under CTLA-4 therapy. The authors suggest that testing tumour cells from humans for susceptibility to RIG-I-driven cell death might serve as a biomarker to predict treatment outcomes of CTLA-4 checkpoint inhibition.

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