Fluidigm's (FLDM) Callisto Now Available for Pre-Order - Analyst Blog
Fluidigm Inc. FLDM recently announced that its new Callisto system is available for pre-order. Developed under grants from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), Callisto is an automated microfluidic cell culture system that will make in-vitro cell modelling easier for stem cell researchers. The company will ship the product in the second half of 2015.
Microfluidic techniques allow precise control of fluids and particles at the nanoliter scale and facilitate simultaneous manipulation and analysis of cultured cells. Cell cultures are important for understanding basic biology mechanisms and also for biomedical applications such as diagnostics, drug screening, biologics- and cell- based therapies.
However, finding the right culture conditions is quite difficult for researchers. Moreover, traditional culture systems are labor intensive and difficult to reproduce due to the involvement of multiple factors.
Callisto effectively solves these problems as it can precisely control microenvironment of cells, which is absolutely necessary for growing cells and transforming them into the desired types of cells. The system can automatically dose 32 independent cell culture chambers with up to 16 different permutations and combinations of multiple factors for three weeks, making life easier for cell biologists.
Callisto is expected accelerate stem cell research as cell biologists can now focus on analysing cultured cells instead of bothering about cell maintenance and dosing. Callisto is designed in such a way that it can easily integrate with Fluidigm’s genomics and proteomics products. This will enable researchers to harvest single-cell suspensions or bulk culture samples from Callisto and perform downstream analysis with Biomark HD, CyTOF and C1 systems.
Fluidigm’s expanding product portfolio is a key growth catalyst in our view. The company recently announced the availability of Single-Cell ATAC-seq, an epigenetics application, for the C1 system. It also announced a new automated library preparation application for targeted sequencing, optimized for the Juno system, which it expects to commercialize by the fourth quarter of 2015.
Fluidigm expects to launch Polaris by mid-2015 which was introduced at the annual Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting in Feb 2015. We believe that these new products will drive instrument sales going forward. However, weak Biomark system sales pose as a major headwind in the near term.
Moreover, the company’s top line continues to be hurt by unfavorable foreign exchange rate. Management slashed its top-line projection for 2015, which is a major negative. Meanwhile, growth in Japan remains sluggish, largely due to delays in funding disbursements.
Stocks to Consider
Favorably-ranked stocks in the same space are Masimo Corp MASI, Cepheid CPHD and Globus Medical GMED. While Masimo and Cepheid sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy), Globus Medical holds a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
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