Applied BioCode Granted 2 Patents for its Barcoded Magnetic Beads Used in Highly Multiplexed MDx Testing

Applied BioCode’s Patents for Digital Multiplexing with up to 4,096-plex Testing Capabilities

SANTA FE SPRINGS, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Applied BioCode, Inc. today announced that the United Stated Patent and Trademark Office has issued US Patents #7,858,307 (Dec 28, 2010) and 7,871,770 (Jan 18, 2011), "Light Transmitted Assay Beads", describe the method of use and the manufacturing of its multiplex Barcoded Magnetic Beads products.

“These patents are important components of our intellectual property portfolio, specifically covering encoded bead multiplex technology licensed initially from Maxwell Sensors, Inc. These patents will provide our multiplex products with long term market value.”

“The polymer-based Barcoded Magnetic Beads are manufactured by well-established semiconductor processes. All beads are created equal. Only the barcode varies. The Barcoded Magnetic Beads are easy to scale up in production, have no batch to batch variation issue, and offer excellent chemical (biocompatibility) and physical (long-term stability) properties. We can easily increasing the barcode multiplicity without changing the hardware,” said Winston Ho, PhD, President of Applied BioCode. “These patents are important components of our intellectual property portfolio, specifically covering encoded bead multiplex technology licensed initially from Maxwell Sensors, Inc. These patents will provide our multiplex products with long term market value.”

Applied BioCode’s Barcoded Magnetic Beads, an open-ended digital multiplex platform, are encoded with a high contrast pattern on micro particles, which simplify multiplexed immuno- and molecular diagnostic assays while offering high throughput, high accuracy, and cost savings. Depending on the number of digits (N) on a single microbead, the number of unique identification codes, 2^N, can be easily extended from 32 (=2⁵) to 4,096 (=2¹²). The system can provide laboratories with a wide variety of biological applications, including molecular diagnostics, gene mutation analysis, biomarker validation, drug resistance genotyping, and pharmacogenomics.

The CE-marked BioCode-1000 and BioCode-1000A Analyzers are robust, easy to use optical imaging systems for detecting 32-plex and 128-plex nucleic acid or protein targets in individual 96-microwells, respectively. The analyzer can rapidly scan a 96-microwell plate, decode and measure label fluorescence of every single bead, and display up to 128 results per microwell in only 40 seconds (12,288 data points/hour). They are environmentally friendly systems, requiring no sheath flow solutions or waste bottles. The CE-marked systems are extremely sensitive ((0.5 fm/ml GAPDH (DNA) and 1.0 pg/ml IL-2 (protein)) and are being used for a variety of testing applications.

About Applied BioCode:

Applied BioCode, Inc. is a privately held biotechnology company with headquarters located in Santa Fe Springs, California. Applied BioCode develops, manufactures, and markets highly multiplexed products to assist those focused on molecular diagnostics, bioresearch, and biomarkers validation. Applied BioCode maintains an extensive collaborative network with universities, government laboratories, and biotech/medical partners. Several of Applied BioCode’s partners have adapted their molecular diagnostic assays to the Barcoded Magnetic Bead multiplex format. This approach enables them to optimize efficiency and resources to help customers maximize the benefit of digital multiplexing.