Beckman Coulter Inks Biomedical R&D, Licensing Deals

Beckman Coulter Inc. of Fullerton, Calif., a manufacturer of biomedical testing instrument systems, tests and supplies that simplify and automate laboratory processes, announced this week it will launch a four-year, molecular diagnostics collaborative research program with NUI (National University of Ireland) Galway with the support of IDA Ireland, a government agency. The company said the collaborative research project, its first in Ireland, will involve the creation of a team of 10 researchers who will be based at NUI Galway and who will build on intellectual property (IP) developed there. Beckman Coulter has a facility in Galway that makes a range of chemistry, hematology and immunoassay reagent projects used with its diagnostic systems. The company also said it has signed IP licensing agreements with the university. Under the terms of the three-to-five-year agreements, research will begin in early 2008. “The agreements give us access to intellectual property for the development of tests for infectious diseases including sepsis, hospital-acquired infections and sexually transmitted diseases such as Chlamydia and Neisseria,” said Mike Whelan, vice president of Beckman Coulter's High Sensitivity Testing group. “Our goal is that our simplified, automated solution will allow these time-consuming, complex, and labor-intensive tests to migrate into the routine hospital lab. So physicians will get diagnostic information within hours, instead of days or weeks, and be able to begin treating patients much sooner.”