Xenogen Corporation

Xenogen Corporation, founded in 1995 by Pamela Contag, Ph.D., and David Benaron, positioned itself as a biotechnology firm focused on expediting the drug discovery and development process. The company's core offering was an integrated suite of biophotonic, real-time in vivo imaging and genetic modification technologies. This technology was born from Dr. Contag's post-doctoral work at Stanford University, where she and her colleagues invented in vivo biophotonic imaging. Her background in microbiology and genetics at the University of Minnesota Medical School provided a strong foundation for this venture.

Xenogen's business model revolved around providing tools and services to the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. The company's flagship product line, the VivoVision™ Systems, enabled researchers to non-invasively illuminate and monitor biological processes within living mammals at the molecular level and in real time. This capability offered the significant benefit of yielding higher quality in vivo data earlier in the drug discovery pipeline, which could substantially reduce the time and cost associated with bringing new therapies to market. In addition to its imaging systems, Xenogen provided services in creating and characterizing animal models through its Xenogen Biosciences division. This included genetic modifications like gene knockouts and knock-ins, as well as comprehensive phenotyping and compound profiling.

The company's technology facilitated non-invasive, longitudinal monitoring of disease progression, cell trafficking, and gene expression patterns in living animals, providing crucial insights for preclinical research across multiple therapeutic areas. By making biological processes visible, Xenogen's tools assisted researchers in evaluating drug targets and compounds more effectively. The company showed strong revenue growth, increasing from \$20.1 million in 2003 to \$30.8 million in 2004. Following a public offering in 2004, Xenogen Corporation was acquired by Caliper Life Sciences in February 2006 for approximately \$80 million. This merger was a strategic move to combine Caliper's expertise in microfluidics and automation with Xenogen's in vivo imaging technology, aiming to bridge the gap between in vitro and in vivo research.

Keywords: Xenogen Corporation, in vivo imaging, biophotonic imaging, drug discovery tools, preclinical research, genetic modification, animal models, molecular imaging, VivoVision Systems, Pamela Contag, Caliper Life Sciences, biotechnology, pharmaceutical services, gene expression, cell trafficking, disease progression monitoring, real-time imaging, non-invasive monitoring, transgenic models, phenotyping