Extension of trade name reflects growth in customized primary cell biology contract research business
SEATTLE, April 28, 2014 /PRNewswire/ — ReachBio LLC announced today that it is extending its trade name and will start doing business as ReachBio Research Labs, effective immediately. As part of this rebranding, the company has updated its logo and launched a new re-designed website at www.reachbio.com.
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According to Rob Chaney, ReachBio's GM and COO, the new trade name reflects the company's evolving business within the life sciences contract research sector. "When we started ReachBio back in 2007, a large part of our business was comprised of performing hematopoietic colony-forming cell assays (predominantly CFU-GM and CFU-Mk), to predict drug-induced neutropenia and thrombocytopenia. Our clients were mainly biotech and pharma companies developing small molecule therapeutics like kinase inhibitors. Those standard services are still an important part of our business and we're now testing a wider variety of compounds, including antibody-based biologics. But as time has gone on, we've found that our reputation for being great cell biologists has resulted in the custom research part of our business really growing. We've done many complex customized projects for clients for which our primary cell biology expertise has been a perfect fit. But some of the things we've been asked to do are so unique that we never directly advertised them as services we could do. The clients were actually lucky they managed to find us. Many actually heard about us by word of mouth recommendation. So this re-branding effort is a step towards making our customized research capabilities more obvious".
Dr. Eric Atkinson, president of BroadReach BioSytems Inc., strategic advisor to ReachBio added: "ReachBio's business has really evolved over the last 7 years. They've acquired expertise in immunology and molecular biology and they also now have great multi-color flow cytometry and multi-parametric mass cytometry capabilities. Typical projects for them now aren't just CFC assays but also include things like evaluating antibody-based biotherapeutics for cytokine storm risk. Or monitoring patient samples throughout a clinical trial for changes in cancer stem cells and leukemic progenitors. Or evaluating the ability of immunotherapeutic agents to recruit T and NK cells to kill cancer cells. Or long-term cultures of primary cells that involve complex manipulations and repetitive sampling over the course of weeks. They do many projects that involve things that most other CROs would be unwilling or incapable of doing.
"Common feedback from clients has been that ReachBio is not a typical CRO – they're more collaborative and really engage scientifically with the client's scientists. The clients are thrilled to be working with ReachBio but often report it had been difficult to find and identify ReachBio as a company that could do the specialized cell biology work they require. Expanding the company's name to ReachBio Research Labs and doing a complete overhaul of ReachBio's website will help to better promote their capabilities and to reinforce ReachBio's brand as being collaborative research partners and excellent cell biologists for hire".
About ReachBio Research Labs
ReachBio provides specialized contract research services and primary cell biology research tools to the drug development and life science research communities worldwide.
ReachBio Research Labs
123 NW 36th St., Suite 235
Seattle, WA 98107
Contact: Rob Chaney
Tel: 206-420-0307