UK-based Genetix, a leading robotics manufacturer has appointed Labmate (Asia) Pvt. Ltd as their marketing partner for micro-arrayers and microarray scanners in India. Yet another Indo-UK partnership was between M-Scan, UK and Bioinnovat, India. These partnerships came up on the eve of the Bangalore Bio 2006 event.

The hi-tech instruments from the UK that will now be available in India, deliver high-throughput gene expression analysis aimed at genomics labs and research and drug discovery firms across India, stated Sir Michael Arthur, British High Commissioner to India the products are on display at the at Bangalore Bio at Palace Grounds.

Hampshire-based Genetix was established in 1991 when the world's first automated colony picker Q-Bot went into production which became the industry standard.

Around the same time Genetix also designed the first 384 well plate which quadrupled production and hence the "Q" became a company identifier in many of its products.

The company also offers the latest linear drive technology robotics for Micro Arraying, Protein Excision, Cell Screening and selection, liquid dispensing and a host of related Reagents and Consumables.

Labmate represents the interests of several world leaders; the customer base encompasses almost all the leading research establishments in life sciences of Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR), Indian Council for Medical research (ICMR) and Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) labs part from leading Universities and major hospitals with research facilities. The recent market segment for the company are t the biopharmaceutical companies involved in recombinant Vaccines and Drug Discovery. Labmate has offices in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Lucknow, Chandigarh and Kolkatta.