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Aclara Biosciences

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Aclara Biosciences
IndustryMedical technology
PredecessorSoane Technologies
FoundedMay 5, 1995 (1995-05-05)[1]
DefunctDecember 10, 2004 (2004-12-10)
FateDefunct
SuccessorVirologic
Headquarters,
Key people
Thomas Klopack (CEO)
Number of employees
>170 (2003[2])

Aclara Biosciences, Inc. (also stylized as ACLARA Biosciences) was a medical technology company, focused on developing applications of microfluidics for use in laboratory testing. It was publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol ACLA.[3]

History

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Aclara Biosciences was founded in 1995 as Soane BioSciences, Inc. in Delaware, and was renamed Aclara Biosciences, Inc. in 1998.[4] The company subsequently relocated its headquarters to Mountain View, California, and its initial public offering of 9 million shares took place on the NASDAQ stock exchange in March 2000.[5] Also in 2000, Aclara was sued by Caliper Technologies for allegedly misappropriating Caliper's trade secrets in regard to the latter company's microfluidics technology. This suit represented one of several legal battles between the two companies, each of which accused the other of infringing on their patents.[6] On October 26, 2000, a jury in California found Aclara guilty of misappropriating trade secrets and awarded Caliper $52,568,000.[7] In 2004, it was reported that Aclara would be purchased by Virologic for $180 million in stock, the equivalent of $4.78 per share.[8] In December 2004, Virologic completed its acquisition of Aclara for $160 million in stock; each of Aclara's shareholders received 1.7 shares of Virologic stock for each share of Aclara stock they had owned.[9]

Products

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Aclara received 96 patents during its history. Its best-known product was its proprietary eTag (short for "electrophoretic tag") assay technology designed for use on proteins and nucleic acids.[10][11] In October 2004, Aclara entered into an arrangement with GlaxoSmithKline to test these assays for potential use in cancer drug development.[12]

References

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  1. ^ "ACLARA BioSciences, Inc. Form 10-Q". Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  2. ^ "Company Info". Aclara. Archived from the original on 2003-02-02. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  3. ^ "ACLARA BIOSCIENCES INC (ACLA) IPO". NASDAQ. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  4. ^ "Aclara Biosciences". Silicon Investor. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  5. ^ "Convertible Debt And Equity Offerings Expected This Week". The New York Times. 2000-03-20. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-23.
  6. ^ Hamilton, Dane (2000-10-11). "Aclara, Caliper Snipe Away as Market Caps Dwindle". TheStreet. Retrieved 2019-04-23.
  7. ^ Bouchie, Aaron (December 2000). "Aclara found guilty". Nature Biotechnology. 18 (12): 1229. doi:10.1038/82267. ISSN 1087-0156. S2CID 35293731.
  8. ^ "ViroLogic to Buy Aclara BioSciences". The New York Times. Bloomberg News. 2004-06-02. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  9. ^ Gilcrest, Laura (2004-12-10). "Virologic buys Aclara Biosciences". MarketWatch. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  10. ^ "Aclara Patents Use of eTag Technology for Cell Surface Protein Measurement". GenomeWeb. 2003-10-07. Retrieved 2019-04-22.
  11. ^ Fitzgerald, Deborah (2002-07-22). "Bridging Genomics and Proteomics". The Scientist. Retrieved 2019-04-23.
  12. ^ "ACLARA and GlaxoSmithKline Evaluating eTag(TM) Technology for Patient Selection for Targeted Cancer Therapies". BioSpace. 2004-10-05. Retrieved 2019-04-22.