Invitrogen Corporation, a global leader in life sciences, announced they have entered into a strategic development and distribution relationship with Blue Heron Biotechnology. Invitrogen will invest in Blue Heron in exchange for worldwide rights to distribute Blue Heron's custom gene synthesis services.

Under the terms of the agreement, Invitrogen will become the exclusive worldwide distributor of Blue Heron's synthetic genes. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Blue Heron Biotechnology's proprietary GeneMaker platform can synthesize any gene sequence, with perfect accuracy regardless of length or complexity, which makes it ideal for the synthetic biology market. Researchers worldwide are increasingly turning to synthetic genes as a convenient, cost-effective alternative for traditional cloning. Accurate and rapid synthesis of synthetic genes has allowed pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies to speed the drug discovery process through an ability to rapidly and accurately synthesize known genes, and produce from them novel proteins, new vaccines and diagnostics.

"Invitrogen recognizes the tremendous new possibilities that gene synthesis offers life science researchers," said Nathan Wood, Vice President of Cloning and Protein Expression. "We have developed a broad array of products that complement Blue Heron's GeneMaker platform and this agreement continues to enhance our portfolio offerings to our customers."

Invitrogen is a leading provider of recombinant cloning and protein expression products, as well as the premier provider of the largest fully sequenced human open reading frame clone collections. Gene synthesis builds upon this strength and will be especially useful in emerging fields such as synthetic biology.

"Partnering with a life sciences leader such as Invitrogen is an important milestone in Blue Heron Bio's continued growth and signals an important milestone for the overall gene synthesis market as well. We are very pleased to be able to make our gene synthesis services available through Invitrogen's unmatched distribution and marketing channels," said John Fess, CEO of Blue Heron Biotechnology.

As part of the agreement, the companies will co-develop new products and services for the research and bio-pharmaceutical markets.

Invitrogen Corporation provides products and services that support academic and government research institutions and pharmaceutical and biotech companies worldwide in their efforts to improve the human condition. The company provides essential life science technologies for disease research, drug discovery, and commercial bioproduction.

Blue Heron Biotechnology is a pioneer and leader in the gene synthesis market, producing nearly ten million base pairs of DNA since its inception in 1999. Blue Heron Bio regularly produces simple to complex DNA sequences from less than 100 base pairs to over 20,000 base pairs, serving hundreds of life science researchers including 17 of the 20 top pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the world.