The life sciences toolmaker Berkeley Lights, Inc. announced the release of Beacon SelectTM, a new optofluidic system for cell line development (CLD). The Beacon Select expands upon the cutting-edge technology provided by the original Beacon system, which was introduced in 2017 and has more than 130 systems already placed throughout the world. The Beacon Select provides clients with optofluidic, NanoPen® chamber, and proprietary CLD applications, but with just the right amount of functionality to satisfy their research and financial needs as customers in a new market segment.
Beacon Select is a two-chip, single-cell optofluidic system for CLD that is best suited for small- to mid-sized biopharmaceutical companies as well as CDMOs/CROs. It allows researchers to clone, culture, test, and select top clones in a single run on a single platform. In contrast, the original four-chip Beacon system, which was designed for high-campaign utilisation by established CDMOs/CROs and large biopharma, was enabled for antibody discovery and CLD. Utilizing the Opto® CLD methodology, the Beacon Select provides high throughput cloning, screening, and selection of top-performing CHO cell lines in just a few days. Additionally, the Opto® Assure Assays give consumers the flexibility to choose clones with favourable product quality features within five days after cloning, which lowers overall bioprocessing costs, increases the likelihood of success, and shortens timelines even further by choosing higher quality clones for scale up.
Berkeley Lights will provide Beacon Select with a variety of purchase alternatives, including capital placement, leasing, or reagent rental, to boost customer accessibility and cost. The technology is perfect for new customers who do not want the full Beacon capacity because the two-chip Beacon Select list price will be roughly half that of the current Beacon system. Additionally, this lower price point enables current Antibody Discovery Beacon customers to access CLD applications and existing CLD Beacon customers to boost throughput.
“Berkeley Lights is enhancing its approach to the market with the introduction of a more flexible configuration and pricing models that is focused on customers’ total cost of ownership”, “The Beacon Select is the first in a series of new platform launches that provide lower barriers to entry for customers to acquire our game-changing technology focused on cell line development. By the second half of 2023, we will also offer Beacon Quest an optofluidic system specialized for academic research institutes and translational research centers.”
Siddhartha Kadia, Ph.D., chief executive officer of Berkeley Lights
Additional Beacon Select Features and Advantages
- According to the Beacon Select system,
- choose clones with greater titers than with conventional techniques.
- two-fold the throughput while cutting the time it takes to create new cell lines by up to 50%
- Realize cloning efficiencies 10 times higher than limiting dilution and 5 times higher than FACS, all while recovering clones that are guaranteed to be >99% monoclonal.
Use Berkeley Lights’ new Custom Productivity Assay to choose clones that secrete a wide range of compounds, such as antibodies, protein-based vaccines, enzymes, fusion proteins, antibody fragments, and cytokines. With this feature, a range of tasks can be carried out on a single instrument.
