In July 2016 it was announced that Thermo Fisher Scientific had acquired Affymetrix. Long since having outgrown the SBIR program, in 1992 Affymatrix had spun out of Affymax - itself also an SBIR involved firm. The founders had developed ways of using semiconductor manufacturing techniques to fabricate DNA microarrays ("GeneChip"). With a customer base from the very earliest days involving just about every firm in the space, Affymetrix, Inc. (NASDA:AFFX) is engaged in the development, manufacture, sale and service of consumables and systems for genetic analysis in the life sciences and clinical healthcare markets. The Company offers a line of products for two principal applications: genotyping and gene expression. The firm makes quartz chips for analysis of DNA Microarrays enabling researchers quickly to scan for the presence of particular genes in a biological sample. Within this area, Affymetrix is focused on oligonucleotide microarrays. These microarrays are used to determine which genes exist in a sample by detecting specific pieces of mRNA. A single chip can be used to analyze thousands of genes in one assay. Chips can be used only once. Affymetrix sells both mass-produced GeneChip arrays intended to match scientifically important parts of human and other animal genomes. Affymetrix manufactures its GeneChip arrays using photolithography. The company also manufactures machinery for high speed analysis of biological samples. The firmhas acquired other small firms to spport its growth - to include three SBIR awardees - and spun off another Perlegen Sciences which went onto receive SBIR funding to focus on wafer-scale genomics for massive data creation and collection required for characterizing population variance of genomic markers and expression for the drug discovery process. Perlegen Sciences ceased business operations in Dec 2009
