Stratagene, Strand in pact

Strand Life Sciences, Indian Institute of Science (IISc) spun-off informatics company, and Stratagene Corporation, a developer, manufacturer and marketer of specialised life science research and diagnostic products, have entered into a strategic partnership to develop a suite of next generation bioinformatics software tools.

Under the terms of the agreement, Strand and Stratagene will collaborate on the design and development of innovative software tools to address the increasingly complex demands of biological data analysis for life scientists, said Vijay Chandru, chairman and CEO of Strand Life Sciences.

Stratagene will exclusively market and sell the jointly developed products, which will utilise Strand's Avadis technology, he added.

"We are very excited about integrating Strand's Avadis platform into our software solutions product line," said Joseph Sorge, president and CEO of Stratagene.

"The Avadis platform won the prestigious Frost and Sullivan Award for Excellence in Technology in 2005 because of the depth and versatility of its data analysis capabilities. This relationship with Strand strengthens our commitment to delivering powerful and easy to use bioinformatics tools to the life sciences community," he added.

"Stratagene is the ideal partner for us, and ultimately, the customer will be the winner," said Vijay Chandru and added that "we believe that this partnership for informatics solutions will enable us to take a strong position in the functional genomics informatics."