Life Technologies Signs Five-Year Agreement with the FDA

CARLSBAD, Calif., July 30, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE) today announced that it has signed a five-year agreement with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to accelerate and advance food safety testing of E. coli and Salmonella, two foodborne contaminants commonly associated with outbreaks and/or recalls.

The collaboration consists of three distinctive projects:

• Life Technologies will design and validate new food safety tests for the detection and identification of foodborne pathogens, with pathogen strains provided by the FDA.
• Life Technologies will design and validate a complete workflow for food pathogen detection on the Ion PGM™ platform, while optimizing sample preparation methods.
• The FDA will have the opportunity to evaluate new disruptive technology platforms by Life Technologies for the use in pathogen detection.

Life Technologies will use its bioinformatics resources to independently develop real-time PCR (polymerase chain reaction) assays against unique E. coli and Salmonella targets in collaboration with the FDA.  It will then provide the test results for these targets to the FDA for further validation.

The FDA will use Life Technologies' Ion PGM™ Sequencer to generate whole genome sequence information from defined bacteria, and for strains that will be excluded from detection.  Life Technologies' bioinformatics team will then analyze the genomic information and provide assays or tests to the FDA for further validation and analysis. Whole genome sequences generated under the collaboration will be added to the National Institutes of Health Genbank so they can be accessed by the food safety research community.

"We are excited to be entering this cooperative research and development agreement with the FDA as we have been working alongside them in one capacity or the other for over 10 years," said Nir Nimrodi, Vice President and General Manager for Food Safety and Animal Health at Life Technologies.  "The FDA will call on us, particularly when it comes to developing rapid detection kits.  This agreement allows them to have new rapid track and trace products for rapid identification of foodborne contaminants."

Lastly, the FDA will validate and test Life Technologies' next-generation sequencing technologies for Salmonella investigations as part of its effort to develop new rapid detection tools that can improve the public health response to future outbreaks.

Life Technologies has a strong history of combating pathogen outbreaks.  In 2011, Life Technologies developed a custom assay to accurately detect the highly pathogenic E. coli 0104:H4 bacterium that spread through Europe, killing hundreds of people. 

"The assay was developed using samples supplied by scientists at University Hospital Munster, who completed the DNA sequencing and analysis work on the deadly E. coli strain using the Ion PGM™ Sequencer," said Maneesh Jain, Ion Torrent Vice President of Marketing for Life Technologies. "Now the FDA will validate and test this same technology to understand the molecular relationship within the Salmonella pathogen in the hopes to prevent future outbreaks from occurring."

The PGM™ offers scientists the simplest and fastest workflow, lowest cost-per-sample, and highest sensitivity for multiple basic and clinical research applications.

About Life Technologies 
Life Technologies Corporation (NASDAQ: LIFE) is a global biotechnology company that is committed to providing the most innovative products and services to leading customers in the fields of scientific research, genetic analysis and applied sciences. With a presence in more than 180 countries, the company's portfolio of 50,000 end-to-end solutions is secured by more than 5,000 patents and licenses that span the entire biological spectrum -- scientific exploration, molecular diagnostics, 21^st century forensics, regenerative medicine and agricultural research. Life Technologies has approximately 10,000 employees and had sales of $3.8 billion in 2012.

Life Technologies' Safe Harbor Statement
This press release includes forward-looking statements about our anticipated results that involve risks and uncertainties. Some of the information contained in this press release, including, but not limited to, statements as to industry trends and Life Technologies' plans, objectives, expectations and strategy for its business, contains forward-looking statements that are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results or events to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Any statements that are not statements of historical fact are forward-looking statements. When used, the words "believe," "plan," "intend," "anticipate," "target," "estimate," "expect" and the like, and/or future tense or conditional constructions ("will," "may," "could," "should," etc.), or similar expressions, identify certain of these forward-looking statements. Important factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those in the forward-looking statements are detailed in filings made by Life Technologies with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Life Technologies undertakes no obligation to update or revise any such forward-looking statements to reflect subsequent events or circumstances.

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Media Contact:
Nina Jimenez
760-277-7451
[email protected]

SOURCE Life Technologies Corporation

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