Standard BioTools

Standard BioTools Inc. (formerly Fluidigm)[3] is an American company engaged in the design, manufacture and sale of biological research equipment based on integrated fluidic circuit technology.[4] The company's founders leveraged their semiconductor experience to create integrated circuits that carried fluids rather than electrons.[5] In 2009, the company was described as "the world's leading manufacturer of microfluidic devices."[6] Among the applications to which the company's products are put to use are protein crystallization, genotyping, DNA analysis and PCR.[7]

"FLDM" redirects here. For the school in Nuevo León, Mexico, see Nuevo León § Education.
Standard BioTools Inc.
Formerly
  • Fluidigm Corporation
  • Mycometrix
TypePublic
Founded1999 (1999)
Headquarters
South San Francisco, California
,
United States
Key people
Michael Egholm
(President & CEO)
RevenueIncrease US$130.6 million (2021)[1]
Number of employees
615 (December 2021)[2]
Websitefluidigm.com
Fluidigm in Canada

Business model

Its products leverage the capabilities of multilayer soft lithography to create microfluidic devices:[8] specifically, technology developed by one of the co-founders and branded "Integrated Fluidic Circuitry".[9]

It is a public company traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange, previously under the ticker symbol FLDM,[10] and then under LAB.

Fluidigm has a number of academic partners whose engagement is aimed to provide a wow factor to exemplar product uses; partners include Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, the Broad Institute, the Genome Institute of Singapore and Kyoto University.[4]

Among companies which include "integrated microfluidic technology" into their products, the only competitor which a market focus on biotechnology as of 2011 appeared to be RainDance Technologies.[7]

Going into 2015, the company is making an effort to infuse industrial design, aesthetic and customer centricity principles to help distinguish their products from those of competitors and generate a distinctive brand experience for users.[4]

History

The company was founded in 1999 as "Mycometrix" by Stephen Quake and Gajus Worthington.[10][9] The company was formed to commercialize technology developed by Quake at the California Institute of Technology referred to as microfluidic large-scale integration and "branded" under the name Integrated Fluidic Circuits.[9] Richard DeLateur came on as chief financial officer in 2006; he was a 20-year veteran of Intel.[5] At the time, the company's chief executive officern (CEO) remained Gajus Worthington.[5] As of 2015, Worthington remained with the company as president and CEO,[4] while Quake was a member of the company's scientific advisory board as of 2011.[9]

The company completed a successful initial public offering (IPO) in February 2011, raising about $75 million.[10][11] This followed a failed, ill-timed IPO in 2008.[10] As of the 2011 IPO, Fluidigm had not yet become profitable, but had accumulated nearly $200 million in debt.[10] Following a $250 million investment from Casdin Capital and Viking Global Investors in April 2022, Fluidigm changed its name to Standard BioTools.[12]

Operations

At the end of 2014, Fluidigm had a headcount of 500 personnel.[4]

In addition to its headquarters and laboratory facility in South San Francisco, California, which it expanded in 2014,[13] the company in 2005 established the first biochip manufacturing facility in Singapore.[6][9] The Singapore facility was in 2009 led by Grace Yow, who also held the position of Fluidigm vice president of worldwide manufacturing.[6]

Products

Fluidigm's products typically consist of single-use biochips, instrumentation for handling biochips and software for instrument operation and data collection and analysis.[6] No Fluidigm products had been approved for clinical use in the United States as of 2009.[6]

Fluidigm's first commercial product was aimed at the protein crystallization market and was launched in 2003 under the brand "Topaz".[9] The company's second marketed product targeted high-throughput DNA amplification and was launched in 2006 under the brand "BioMark".[9] By 2013, BioMark had been adapted to real-time PCR and was capable of running >9000 reactions in parallel.[14] A high-throughput genotyping system, FLUIDIGM EPI, was introduced in 2008.[9]

The C1 Single-Cell Auto Prep, or C1 system, was released in the early 2000s aimed at delivering 96 single-cell capture and processing events in parallel.[4] One aim of development forward from the C1 system is increasing parallel throughput.[4] This initial line of instruments purportedly cost about $200,000 apiece to purchase in 2011.[10] One reported use for the instruments is "to identify signatures of induced pluripotent stem cells".[10]

In May 2021, Fluidigm introduced CyTOF XT,[15] a forth-generation CyTOF platform that enables system-level biology at single-cell resolution, designed for clinical trials. CyTOF technology provides a high-resolution proteomic profile of each cell, which distinguishes it from all other cells and reveals the heterogeneity of the sample. Fluidigm also announced proteomics sample barcoding.[16]

Notes
  1. Linthwaite 2022, p. 75.
  2. Linthwaite 2022, p. 15.
  3. "Fluidigm Completes $250 Million Strategic Capital Infusion and Changes Name to Standard BioTools Inc" (Press release). Standard BioTools. 4 April 2022. Retrieved 21 August 2022.
  4. Dutton, Gail (15 Jan 2015). "Fluidigm Pioneers Single-Cell Biology". Corporate Profile. Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News. Vol. 34, no. 2. pp. 8–9.
  5. Del Conte, Natali T. (20 March 2006). "Richard DeLateur". The Examiner. p. 17. Retrieved 21 August 2022.
  6. "Fluidigm: 250 Million Microfluidic Valves Manufactured – and Counting". Nanotechnology Business Journal. NewsRx, LLC. 7 Sep 2009. Archived from the original on 2 April 2015.
  7. Angelescu 2011, p. 226.
  8. Angelescu 2011, p. 227.
  9. Angelescu 2011, p. 225.
  10. Timmerman, Luke (11 Feb 2011). "Fluidigm Raises $75M in Second Chance at IPO". San Francisco. Xconomy.
  11. Tse, Andrea (10 Feb 2011). "Fluidigm Pops After IPO". The Street.
  12. "Fluidigm Completes $250 Million Strategic Capital Infusion and Changes Name to Standard BioTools Inc" (Press release). GlobeNewswire. April 4, 2022.
  13. GenomeWeb staff reporter (19 Sep 2014). "PerkinElmer; Guardant Health; PacBio; BGI Tech; Thermo Fisher, UCSD; Fluidigm; Cynvenio; and More". In Brief This Week. GenomeWeb. New York, NY.closed access
  14. Yan, Hong; Kun, Liu Xiao (13 Jun 2013). "5. Real-Time Fluorescent PCR by Labeled Primer with a Single Fluorescent Molecule". In Nolan, Tania; Bustin, Stephen A. (eds.). PCR Technology: Current Innovations (3rd ed.). CRC Press. ISBN 9781439848050 – via Google Books.
  15. "CyTOF XT Released" (2021-05-21). Fluidigm.
  16. Bonislawski, Adam (July 2, 2015). "Fluidigm Aims to Expand CyTOF Market with Launch of New Platform, Barcoding System". GenomeWeb. Retrieved July 2, 2015.

References
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