Company Announcements NimbleGen Systems named Gregory McGuinness as vice president of International Business. He was previously director of European Business Development for Gene Logic. NimbleGen Systems obtained a license to the “Southern array patents” from Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) and will supply OGT with microarrays for use in its service business. Oxford Gene Technology granted Illumina access to its patents for the detection of DNA sequence variations and provided Illumina with certain rights with respect to SNP genotyping. Baylor College of Medicine obtained a worldwide license to a number of Affymetrix patents covering comparative genomic hybridization (CGH) microarray services in Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments’ environments. Affymetrix granted Sysmex exclusive rights to distribute its diagnostic microarray products in Japan and nonexclusive access to its microarray technology to develop and market in vitro diagnostic tests worldwide. Affymetrix named Kevin M. King president of its life sciences business and executive vice president in December 2006. He was formerly president and CEO of Thomson Healthcare. Agilent announced two new service partners: Empire Genomics of Buffalo, New York and Welgene Biotech of Taipei City, Taiwan. In December 2006, CombiMatrix, a subsidiary of Acacia Research, filed for an IPO. Illumina and the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario will collaborate to develop molecular diagnostic tests to screen newborns for spinal muscular atrophy and hemoglobinopathies utilizing Illumina’s VeraCode technology and BeadXpress reader. Product Introductions Affymetrix and Iconix Biosciences launched the ToxFX Analysis Suite, which combines their respective GeneChip microarrays and toxicology database. Sales/Orders of Note The National Cancer Institute purchased full site licenses for Agilent’s GeneSpring GX, CGH Analytics, Chip Analytics and GeneSpring GT software. Wyeth extended its agreement with Affymetrix, which began in 1994, for three more years. Amgen and the Brigham & Women’s Hospital will use Illumina’s Infinium and HumanHap300-Duo BeadChip technology to analyze approximately 28,000 samples. Illumina entered into a multimillion dollar agreement with GlaxoSmithKline to purchase 1,000 HumanHap550 BeadChips and a statement of work to utilize its Fast-Track Genotyping Service.