Gen9 raises $21 million from Agilent

Synthetic biology company Gen9 Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.) raised $21 million in a series C round from tool company Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A). Gen9's BioFab platform comprises gene synthesis technologies that the company said enables high throughput DNA synthesis at lower cost and higher accuracy compared to other methods. Gen9 can synthesize and markets gene fragments it calls GeneBits that are up to about 1,000 base pairs long. The company is also launching GeneBytes, or fragments that are 1,000-3,000 base pairs long. As part of Agilent's investment, Gen9 will incorporate into its manufacturing process Agilent's Oligonucleotide Library Synthesis technology for the large-scale creation of DNA libraries. Agilent was up $0.24 to $42.85 on Wednesday. ...