MINNEAPOLIS, March 28, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) is pleased to announce that Lunaphore, part of Bio-Techne's Spatial Biology Division, is partnering with Nikon Instruments Inc. (Nikon) to expand access to spatial biology services with the COMET™ platform for US-based biotech, pharma, and academic customers.

Lunaphore's flagship COMET technology is the only fully-automated,  high-throughput, hyperplex platform with superior tissue profiling capabilities, which performs protein detection with standard, non-conjugated antibodies. The Nikon BioImaging Lab is a research and innovation hub recently established by Nikon in the Greater Boston area, Massachusetts with the overarching mission of providing contract imaging solutions, AI-enhanced analysis and bioassay development services to foster research and drug discovery. Together, Lunaphore and the Nikon BioImaging Lab will be able to leverage their complementary expertise in microscopy-based imaging and analysis to bring COMET technology and spatial biology to the greater scientific community.

Through this partnership, in addition to access to the COMET platform, Nikon customers will also benefit from HORIZON™, Lunaphore's image analysis software designed for analyzing COMET hyperplex images, to further streamline image analysis workflow. Researchers and clinicians can leverage the universal end-to-end product suite to unlock the full potential of spatial biology for their research objectives.

"The deployment of COMET at the Nikon BioImaging Lab ensures that an expanded base of customers and researchers across the US can access the cutting-edge capabilities of our spatial biology solutions," said Matt McManus, President of Bio-Techne's Diagnostics & Genomics Segment. "This strategic partnership reflects Bio-Techne and Nikon's shared commitment to bringing outstanding innovation to scientists and helping push the boundaries of research."

"Nikon is very excited to have a strategic partnership with Lunaphore," said Toshisada Matsuba, President, CEO at Nikon Instruments Inc.

"We are pleased to provide spatial biology assay services using Lunaphore's automated platform for hyperplex immunofluorescence alongside the broad range of imaging solutions we offer with our Nikon microscopes," added Fumiki  Yanagawa, General Manager at the Nikon BioImaging Lab. "Spatial biology is a dynamic area of innovation that will shed new light on healthcare and further our understanding of human disease and health."

About Bio-Techne

Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH) is a global life sciences company providing innovative tools and bioactive reagents for the research and clinical diagnostic communities. Bio-Techne products assist scientific investigations into biological processes and the nature and progress of specific diseases. They aid in drug discovery efforts and provide the means for accurate clinical tests and diagnoses. With thousands of products in its portfolio, Bio-Techne generated over $1.1 billion in net sales in fiscal 2023 and has approximately 3,100 employees worldwide. For more information on Bio-Techne and its brands, please visit https://www.bio-techne.com or follow the Company on social media at: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter or YouTube.

About Lunaphore

Lunaphore Technologies S.A. – a Bio-Techne brand, is a Swiss company born in 2014 with the vision of enabling spatial biology in every laboratory. Lunaphore provides solutions based on a game-changing chip technology that can extract spatial proteomic and transcriptomic data from tumors and other tissues, transforming any assay into multiplex spatial biology through a streamlined and easily integrated process. Lunaphore empowers researchers in immunology, immuno-oncology, and neuroscience to push the boundaries of scientific discovery and drug development. Lunaphore's technology enables the identification of biomarker "signatures" with clinical relevance to support the development of diagnostic tools and streamline clinical trials, to ultimately improve patient outcomes. For further information on Lunaphore and its products, please visit https://lunaphore.com.

About COMET™

COMET™ is the only fully automated, high-throughput, hyperplex platform ensuring scalability and reproducibility without the need to conjugate primary antibodies. COMET™ provides walk-away automation, integrating staining, imaging, and image preprocessing steps to obtain standard hyperplex images. The multiomics capability of COMET™ enables the simultaneous analysis of both RNA and protein data within the spatial context of tissues to enhance the understanding of cellular dynamics and disease processes. COMET™ generates highly robust and reproducible data with full tissue preservation, allowing researchers to perform downstream modalities such as H&E or transcriptomics using the same slide. Its superior tissue profiling capabilities facilitate the analysis of 40 different spatial markers in each automated run on a tissue slide. In contrast to other spatial biology solutions, COMET™ works with off-the-shelf, label-free primary antibodies, making panel design much more flexible and faster than any other hyperplex solution. COMET™ works with regular glass slides from standard histology workflows; it is validated for human and mouse samples and is compatible with any other animal sample. The platform can be used for a wide range of research applications, allowing for a dramatic improvement in the understanding of disease pathology. To learn more about the COMET™ platform, please visit: https://lunaphore.com/products/comet/ 

About Nikon Instruments Inc.

Nikon Instruments Inc. is the US microscopy arm of Nikon Healthcare, a world leader in the development and manufacture of optical and digital imaging technology for biomedical applications. For more information, please visit https://www.microscope.healthcare.nikon.com or contact us at 1-800-52-NIKON.

About Nikon BioImaging Lab

The Nikon BioImaging Lab, established in Boston, is a fully equipped laboratory housing a wide range of advanced microscopes and other critical instrumentation, and staffed by experienced scientists who collaborate with pharma, biotech and academic customers to develop solutions for their wide-ranging needs, from cell culture to imaging-based studies of biological tissues and bioassays.  For more information, please visit https://www.microscope.healthcare.nikon.com/bioimaging-centers/nikon-bioimaging-labs/boston-usa or contact us at 1-800-52-NIKON.

For further information on Lunaphore:

Lindsey Rodger, Head of Communications

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Bio-Techne Corporation (NASDAQ: TECH)

David Clair, Vice President, Investor Relations & Corporate Development

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612-656-4416

For further information on Nikon Instruments Inc:

Stephen Ross, Director, Product and Marketing, Nikon Instruments Inc

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Nikon BioImaging Lab:

Michael Yang, Scientific Group Leader, Nikon BioImaging Lab

Gaurav Joshi, Senior Scientist, Nikon BioImaging Lab

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