SCIENION AG today has announced that R-Biopharm AG – a leading developer of products for clinical diagnostics and food & feed analysis – will use SCIENION’s sciFLEXARRAYER technology to produce innovative chips for the detection of antibiotic residues in milk.
Dortmund and Darmstadt, Germany, June 27, 2011: “We have a novel chip in our product portfolio in the business segment food analysis to simultaneously detect residues of different antibiotics in milk qualitatively and quantitatively very quickly. This represents an innovation for consumer safety* and for the milk processing industry”, stated Dr. Peter Schubert, Head Research and Development at R-Biopharm AG. „For the reproducible high throughput production of this chip in top quality we have been looking for the best available devices for lab automation and production. Tests have shown that the sciFLEXARRAYER clearly achieved the best results compared to other devices. Therefore, we decided for the SCIENION technology.”
The innovative „milkchip” hast two major applications. On one hand it is dedicated to a better consumer protection in order to avoid any health risks caused by antibiotic residues in milk. On the other hand antibiotics in milk are also a problem for the milk processing industry. Antibiotics inhibit the growth of bacteria and thus also of lactic acid bacteria and other cultures essential for the production of yoghurt, cheese and other milk products. A test before processing the milk is useful to avoid such problems.
Dr. Holger Eickhoff, CEO of SCIENION AG, commented: „We are very pleased that
R-Biopharm has decided for our sciFLEXARRAYER and we thus demonstrate once more the broad spectrum of applications of our technology. It is our strength to enable precise dispensing of any content in the pico- and nanoliter range and this is increasingly required in the areas of screening, analytics and diagnostics.”
Ahmed Ait Benarrou, head of the microarray group at R- Biopharm, added: “A unique feature of our chip is furthermore that the chip is regenerative. This means you can – after appropriate washing procedures – analyze about 100 milk samples with a single chip – a clear advantage for our customers." The launch of the "milkchip” is planned for midyear 2012.
*Antibiotic resistances are a widely spread and increasing problem in the medical therapy of bacterial infections. Therefore, antibiotics should be applied well-directed and be prescribed by physicians. Prescriptive limits for residues of antibiotics in food and also in milk have been stipulated legally to avoid risks for consumers.

About Scienion
Scienion AG provides systems and services for the contact-free printing of biological and chemical agents for diagnostics, pharmaceutics, veterinary, plant and food analytics and research. Addressing the dynamically increasing needs for miniaturization and multiplex analyses, Scienion offers a unique technology portfolio that has been consequently expanded over one decade. Scienion provides flexible solutions for research and development whereas solutions for production purposes are rather customized. Systems and software are characterized by its versatility, precision and robustness. The company is a renowned specialist for ultra low volume liquid handling, particularly for the handling of precious and sensitive compounds of biological or chemical origin. Scienion’s dispensers allow for contact-free and precise drop spotting in the pico- to nano-liter range and are optimally suited for microarray based analytics – as for tests with DNA, oligonucleotides, peptides, proteins, antibodies, glycans or for dispensing cells onto various carriers.
Scienion AG provides systems and services for the contact-free printing of biological and chemical agents for diagnostics, pharmaceutics, veterinary, plant and food analytics and research. Addressing the dynamically increasing needs for miniaturization and multiplex analyses, Scienion offers a unique technology portfolio that has been consequently expanded over one decade. Scienion provides flexible solutions for research and development whereas solutions for production purposes are rather customized. Systems and software are characterized by its versatility, precision and robustness. The company is a renowned specialist for ultra low volume liquid handling, particularly for the handling of precious and sensitive compounds of biological or chemical origin. Scienion’s dispensers allow for contact-free and precise drop spotting in the pico- to nano-liter range and are optimally suited for microarray based analytics – as for tests with DNA, oligonucleotides, peptides, proteins, antibodies, glycans or for dispensing cells onto various carriers.

About R-Biopharm
R-Biopharm AG is a leading developer of test solutions for clinical diagnostics and food & feed analysis. In both sectors, the R-Biopharm test kits offer high precision and accuracy, key requirements where patient and consumer health is at risk.
In clinical diagnostics R-Biopharm possesses many years of sound experience, particularly in the field of infectological stool diagnostics as well as in the field of serological infection diagnostics and allergy diagnostics. 2006 the clinical product portfolio was extended by innovative test systems in the product lines tumor diagnostics and gastroenterology.
In the field of food & feed analysis, the company offers a consistently impressive range of approved immunological, enzymatic and microbiological test kits for the detection of residues, food constituents and microbiological contaminants.
The company is headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, and is represented internationally by subsidiaries in the UK, USA, Italy, France, Latin America, Brasil, Spain, Australia and China as well as by a worldwide extensive network of more than 80 distributors. In addition, Switzerland, Austria and the Netherlands are represented by local country managers.

SCIENION AG
Almut Gebhard
Otto-Hahn-Str. 15
D-44227 Dortmund
Phone +49 (0)30 – 6392 1700
Fax: +49 (0)30 – 6392 1701
[email protected]
www.scienion.com

R-Biopharm AG
Ahmed Ait Benarrou
An der neuen Bergstraße 17
D-64297 Darmstadt
Phone +49 (0)6151 – 8102-427
Fax +49 (0)6151 – 8102-734
[email protected]
www.r-biopharm.com