Pharmacia Biotech Inc.

Daniel D Zender

James F Jolly

David W Walker

Brent A Burdick

An apparatus for dispensing reagent spheres from a vial includes a housing with an inlet through which the reagent spheres are received from the vial. Within the housing is a dispensing tube which forms a passageway for the reagent spheres and which has a first relatively large section in communication with the inlet and a funnel section in which the passageway reduces in cross section to a narrower linearizing section. The cross sectional area of the linearizing section is only slightly larger than one of the reagent spheres being dispensed. A metering shaft extends across and blocks the linearizing section of the passageway. The metering shaft has a depression for conveying one reagent sphere at a time between portions of linearizing section when the metering shaft is rotated 180 degrees. A gear on the metering shaft meshes with teeth on a plunger which is slidably mounted to the housing. A user pressing the plunger causes the metering shaft to rotate transferring a reagent sphere to a portion of the passageway connected to the outlet of the housing and thereby ejects that reagent sphere from the housing.

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Muskego, WI, United States of America

Daniel D Zender