Gator Bio: Biolayer Interferometry Instruments & BLI Biosensors

A Company Built by the Inventors of BLI

Gator Bio is a Palo Alto, California-based life sciences company that develops, manufactures, and markets next-generation biolayer interferometry (BLI) analytical instruments, biosensors, and reagent kits. Founded by the original inventors of BLI technology, the company's mission is to power exploration of the biomolecular universe — equipping researchers with faster, simpler, and more cost-effective tools for studying biomolecular interactions. Whether you're running early-stage antibody screening in an academic lab or processing thousands of samples daily in a high-throughput facility, Gator Bio has built a platform that scales with your research.

Gator Bio operates as a subsidiary of Access Medical Systems (AMS), alongside its sister company ET Healthcare. The company employs approximately 51–200 people across three continents, has validated over 400 installations globally, and maintains a growing distribution network across North America, Europe, and Asia.

The history of Gator Bio is inseparable from the origins of biolayer interferometry itself. In late 2001, Dr. Hong Tan — inspired by a newspaper article on nanotechnology and biotech breakthroughs — set out to build biosensors for life sciences and diagnostics. Together with Robert Zuk, he co-founded FortéBio, the company that invented and first commercialized BLI technology. FortéBio launched its landmark Octet® system in 2006, which quickly became a standard tool in biopharmaceutical R&D.

FortéBio was acquired by Pall Corporation in 2011, which was later acquired by Danaher Corporation. The Octet BLI platform ultimately became part of Sartorius's portfolio. Seeing an opportunity to push BLI performance further, Dr. Tan and Zuk reunited with a clear goal: build the next generation of BLI from scratch. They founded Gator Bio and launched their first instrument, the GatorPrime, in March 2019, with a commitment to higher sensitivity, greater reliability, and lower cost of ownership than any legacy BLI system.

Dr. Hong Tan, Gator Bio's CEO, previously designed the tracking and pointing system for NASA's HEIDi space telescope. Robert Zuk, the CTO, holds 65 U.S. patents. Their combined expertise in precision engineering, biochemistry, and high-volume manufacturing is embedded in every product the company brings to market.

Milestones:

• 2019: Launched the GatorPrime, Gator Bio's first next-gen BLI instrument
• 2021: Launched the GatorPlus and expanded the biosensor portfolio to 14 products; parent company AMS raised over $100 million in a funding round co-led by Sequoia Capital China and GL Ventures, with participation from Kaiser Permanente, Legend Capital, and Qiming Venture Partners
• 2022: Named "Top Biotech Startup Company" by Life Sciences Review; signed an exclusive EU distribution agreement with I&L Biosystems GmbH; established a strategic partnership with BMS Korea
• 2025: Shipped over 100 BLI instruments in under 12 months while producing millions of biosensors annually; launched the GeneSwift reagent kit for AAV genome titer analysis; partnered with Monod Bio to develop AI-designed biosensors
• 2026: Commercially launched the HIS XT probes — the first BLI probes to incorporate AI-designed binding proteins; announced a high-throughput automation solution with Hudson Lab Automation capable of processing over 1,200 samples per day

How Biolayer Interferometry Works

Biolayer interferometry is a label-free optical detection technology that measures biomolecular interactions in real time. It works by dipping biosensing probes into samples and monitoring changes in the interference pattern of white light reflected from the biosensor tip as molecules bind to its surface. These shifts are recorded instantly and are proportional to the number and size of molecules bound — giving researchers kinetic data, including association rates, dissociation rates, and equilibrium binding constants, without requiring labels, flow cells, or microfluidics.

Gator Bio's next-gen BLI platform improves on legacy systems in several important ways. Extra thermal insulation of the optical bench reduces signal drift, increasing sensitivity for long dissociation measurements. Patented optical layers and specialized surface chemistry deliver higher binding capacity, robustness, and regeneration capability across the biosensor portfolio. The fully fluidics-free design means the instruments handle everything from purified proteins to crude cell lysates and serum, with minimal maintenance overhead. Across the entire platform, reproducibility is less than 5% CV — consistent enough to support data from early discovery all the way through regulatory submissions.

Gator Bio Products

Biolayer Interferometry Instruments

Gator Bio's instrument lineup includes five biolayer interferometry systems, each designed for a different throughput level and lab setting. Whether you're running a few samples a day in a small academic lab or processing thousands of samples continuously in a high-throughput environment, there's a system built for your scale. All instruments share core specifications: baseline noise of ≤4 pm, acquisition rates of 2, 5, and 10 Hz, and an analysis temperature range from ambient +4°C to 40°C.

• Gator Pilot — A 4-channel system with a batch capacity of up to 40 samples; designed for entry-level use in small labs or facilities new to BLI
• Gator Prime — An 8-channel system handling up to 168 samples per batch; the standard choice for academic labs and biotech R&D groups running routine BLI workflows
• Gator Plus — An 8-channel system with a batch capacity of up to 456 samples and extended walk-away time of over 6 hours, enabling rich datasets from overnight or unattended runs
• Gator Pivot — A 16-channel system processing up to 816 samples per batch, with full automation compatibility for labs actively scaling their throughput
• Gator Pro — A 32-channel system supporting up to 1,152 samples per batch; purpose-built for high-throughput screening campaigns and large-scale epitope binning

The Gator Pivot and Gator Pro also include sample temperature control, smart monitoring, self-cleaning capabilities, and proven integration with lab automation platforms — making 24/7 continuous operation straightforward without sacrificing data integrity.

BLI Biosensors

Gator Bio offers over 30 off-the-shelf BLI biosensor types, with frequent new releases and custom biosensor development available on demand. The breadth of the portfolio means you can cover a wide range of analytes, capture formats, and application needs without switching platforms or vendors.

The biosensor portfolio spans several categories:

• Antibody Biosensors: Protein A, Protein G, Protein L, Human Fc Capture (HFC and HFC Gen II), Mouse Fc Capture XT, Anti-Rabbit Fc, Anti-FAB, IgM, and Anti-VHH for camelid single-domain antibodies
• Purification Tag Biosensors: Anti-His, HIS XT (featuring AI-designed NovoBody™ technology), Ni-NTA kit, Strep-Tactin XT, Anti-GST, and Anti-FLAG
• Streptavidin Suite: SA, SA XT (optimized for both low and high molecular weight analytes), SMAP (for small molecules down to 150 Da), and the Flex SA kit — the industry's first reactivatable streptavidin biosensor, capable of over 20 reactivations without performance degradation
• Cell & Gene Therapy Probes: AAVX/AAV9 probes for capsid titer, high-sensitivity AAVX/AAV9 kits, and AAV Ratio kits for empty/full capsid ratio determination
• User-Customized Chemistries: Anti-PEG for PEGylated proteins and lipid nanoparticles, amine coupling (AR) for EDC-NHS chemistry, APS for hydrophobic ligand capture, and fully custom biosensors built to your specification

Reagent Kits

In 2025, Gator Bio launched GeneSwift, a novel reagent kit for AAV genome titer and integrity analysis. GeneSwift combines single DNA hybridization, immunochemistry, and BLI detection to deliver titer results in just 35 minutes — at least 10 times faster than standard ddPCR-based methods.

It's the only assay on the market capable of simultaneously titering both positive and negative strands of the AAV genome. GeneSwift is available with GFP, CMV, and SV40 reagents and is compatible with all Gator BLI instruments.

Software

Two software options support the full instrument lineup. Gator One is the standard platform, providing intuitive assay setup, real-time data acquisition, and comprehensive analysis tools across all systems.

For regulated environments, Gator Part 11 Software is a GMP/GLP-compliant solution built for FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliance. It includes account management, enhanced audit trails, time-stamped data, and recorded user sessions — so your data integrity requirements are addressed from day one without needing a separate compliance layer.

Services

Beyond the instruments themselves, Gator Bio provides a set of services designed to get your lab running quickly and keep it performing reliably over time.

IQ/OQ Service Bundle

Installation Qualifications (IQ) and Operational Qualifications (OQ) are performed by certified Gator Bio personnel, validating critical system components against verified specifications. This is particularly valuable for regulated or GMP lab environments where documented qualification is required before instruments go into production use.

PhD-Level Application Support

Gator Bio's application support team is made up of PhD-level scientists who understand your assays, not just your instruments. You get expert guidance on assay development, troubleshooting, and optimization across the full product portfolio — instruments, BLI biosensors, consumables, and assay formats.

Custom Biosensor Development

For applications that fall outside the standard portfolio, Gator Bio offers custom biosensor development tailored to your specific needs. This includes novel binding chemistries and capture formats not available off the shelf.

Automation Integration

Gator Bio's Pivot and Pro instruments are designed for integration with lab automation platforms. Their proven solution with Hudson Lab Automation enables 24/7 continuous operation with throughput exceeding 1,200 samples per day — a meaningful upgrade for CROs, pharma labs, and any team running large screening campaigns.

Applications

The Gator BLI platform supports a broad range of applications across the biotherapeutic development workflow, from early discovery through manufacturing.

Antibody Discovery & Characterization

The platform supports rapid antibody screening, off-rate ranking, isotyping, cross-reactivity testing, and detailed kinetic characterization. You can move from crude hybridoma supernatants to fully characterized purified leads without switching instruments or assay formats.

Epitope Binning

Gator systems can complete up to 32 × 32 epitope binning assays in under 8 hours, and up to 96 × 96 matrices in 5 days. With the HIS XT probes, you can characterize 256 antibody pairs in under 4 hours — a significant time savings at the lead selection stage.

Biomolecular Quantitation

The platform determines protein concentrations in complex matrices in as little as 30 seconds per read, with sub-ng/mL sensitivity and a 5-log dynamic range. This makes it useful anywhere you need fast, reliable titer data without pulling samples for off-line analysis.

Cell & Gene Therapy / Viral Vector Analytics

Gator Bio's AAV analytics suite handles crude samples directly via a simple "dilute and dip" workflow and can complete 96 upstream titer samples in 100 minutes. It covers the full characterization picture — capsid titer, genome titer, and empty/full capsid ratio — all on a single platform, without the need for separate assay systems.

Small Molecule Drug Discovery

The SMAP biosensor extends BLI detection down to molecules as small as 150 Da, enabling label-free binding studies for small molecule candidates without specialized SPR equipment.

Additional Applications

Additional applications include stability and activity assays, vaccine research and development, lipid nanoparticle (LNP) characterization, and validation of AI-designed binding proteins.

Industries Served

Gator Bio's platform serves a broad cross-section of the life sciences, from early-stage startups to some of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies.

• Small and mid-size biotech: Cost-effective access to high-performance biolayer interferometry instruments for labs developing monoclonal antibodies, bispecifics, and other biologics
• Large biopharmaceutical companies: Organizations including Pfizer and Genentech rely on BLI for drug discovery, process development, and manufacturing quality control
• Gene therapy and cell therapy companies: The AAV analytics suite supports development from early research through commercial manufacturing, covering every key vector characterization assay
• Academic and research laboratories: The Gator Pilot and Gator Prime give academic labs access to robust BLI capabilities for protein interaction studies, cell biology, and basic research without requiring large capital investments
• Vaccine developers: Gator Bio's instruments have been applied in vaccine research programs, including COVID-19 development efforts where rapid binding characterization was critical
• Contract research organizations (CROs): The Gator Pivot and Gator Pro, combined with automation integration, are well-suited for high-volume service labs that need consistent throughput and reproducible data quality across large sample batches
• Diagnostics and AI-driven protein design: The platform serves as a critical validation tool for AI-designed binding proteins and novel reagent development

A Growing Global Presence

Gator Bio serves North American customers directly from its Palo Alto headquarters. In Europe, an exclusive distribution agreement with I&L Biosystems GmbH covers the EU market. In Asia, BMS Korea handles South Korean distribution, and the AMS parent company network supports access throughout China. The company's staff spans three continents, and Gator Bio is an active participant in major industry events including SLAS.

The Gator platform has been cited in peer-reviewed publications across journals including Nature, Cell Host & Microbe, Cancer Research, and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, spanning applications from antibody characterization and vaccine development to gene therapy research and AI-driven protein design — a testament to the platform's scientific credibility and versatility across disciplines.

Lease Gator Bio Equipment Through Excedr

Gator Bio makes high-performance biolayer interferometry instruments and BLI biosensors accessible to labs of all sizes, but the upfront cost of outfitting your lab with the right analytical tools can add up quickly.

If you want to avoid a large capital outlay, leasing your equipment is worth considering. Leasing gives you more flexibility — by conserving capital, you can direct resources toward other priorities like staffing, reagents, or expanding your research programs.

Looking to lease your lab equipment? Let us know, and we'll help you manage everything you need, from negotiation to maintenance. Contact us today!