ImmunoReagents, Inc. was founded in October 2005 in the Technology Incubator on Centennial Campus of NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. Its founder is Dr. Ann Black who has more than 30 years of experience in antibody development, purification and immunoassay development. Prior to establishing ImmunoReagents, Dr. Black worked at Boehringer Mannheim Diagnostics in charge of antibody development and procurement at the Indianapolis, IN facility and then served as Vice President of Research and Manufacturing at Fortron BioScience, Inc. in Morrisville, NC.

In 2005 only one part-time employee was on staff, but today there are five full-time employees, increasing the cumulative antibody experience to over 80 years from the senior staff. In addition to these core employees, ImmunoReagents hires North Carolina State University (NCSU) students to assist with research and quality control. This provides students with valuable, relevant work experience in the biotech industry.

The initial focus of the Company was to develop a line of affinity purified secondary antibodies, absorbed against various species to provide a high quality product for use in the life science industry. These antibodies are available in bulk quantity and are customizable to meet customer specifications for buffer composition and cross absorption. With those capabilities in place, the Company began to produce affinity purified primary antibodies to the immunodiagnostic customers for detection of a variety of human diseases. Today several of these primary antibodies are sold by the Company’s customers in FDA approved, immunodiagnostic assays, including the best-selling Goat Anti-Cystatin C.

Future plans for ImmunoReagents include finding new ways to serve existing customers as well as product line expansion. The veterinary market for antibodies shows significant potential and the Company is uniquely situated on the NCSU campus where it can work closely with the highly regarded Veterinary School.

ImmunoReagents began with only six products in its first year and today offers more than 800 products to the research and diagnostic marketplace. Regional distributors offer these products not only in the US and Canada, but also in eleven countries in Europe and Asia. While direct-sales to the end-user are an important segment of ImmunoReagents’ business, the OEM market continues to provide the majority of the Company’s revenue. These OEM customers often relabel the ImmunoReagents antibody with their own unique labels.

ImmunoReagents has a strong belief in giving back to the community through financial contributions as well as volunteering time and labor to many worthy local projects. The Company’s senior staff share their knowledge by teaching and offering lectures. The Company assists the NCSU student community by offering work opportunities and training for many of tomorrow’s researchers.

ImmunoReagents has also developed a “green initiative” in concert with NCSU to reuse and recycle as much as possible. The Company also purchases its letterhead, envelopes, business cards and copy paper using FCS paper.

ImmunoReagents, Inc. is currently located on the Centennial Campus at North Carolina State University as part of their Technology Incubator. The Company leases 1300 square feet of state-of-the-art wet lab space.