Company Announcements

Oxford Nanopore licensed technology from the University of Cambridge for a hybrid nanopore that combines a solid state nanopore and DNA origami, which are small, well-controlled shapes made of DNA.

Bloomberg reported that Illumina’s agreement related to Oxford Nanopore exonuclease sequencing technology will expire in 2016. Illumina holds a 15% stake in Oxford Nanopore.

In May, Knome added Real Time Genomics Real Variant platform into its knoSYS 100 interpretation system.

Real Time Genomics secured a $5 million investment in May.

Life Technologies’ 3500 Dx Series Genetic Analyzers gained regulatory approval in Mexico and Canada.

In June, Empire Genomics, Life Technologies and the University of Buffalo partnered to develop gene sequencing facilities for genetics-based clinical research.

Product Introductions

Bio-Rad Laboratories launched the ddPCR library quantification kit for Illumina TruSeq sample preparation protocols.

WaferGen introduced in May the SmartChip TE, a PCR-based target enrichment solution for sample preparation prior to targeted resequencing in clinical applications.

Roche launched the SeqCap EZ Pure Capture Bead Kit for target enrichment.

Enzymatics released the SPARK DNA Sample Prep Kits for Illumina and Ion Torrent platforms. The kits incorporate room temperature–stable library technology and reduce reagent pipetting requirements.

DNAnexus launched in June the Developer Program, making available technical and support resources to create and integrate data analysis applications on its platform.

Clontech Laboratories introduced the SMARTer Universal Low Input RNA Library Prep Kit, which integrates its SMART technology with Rubicon Genomics ThruPLEX technology, to generate libraries for transcriptome analysis from very low amounts of total RNA using Illumina platforms.

Life Technologies released the Oncomine Next Gen Sequencing Power Tools, a suite of software that enables the survey of novel predicted driver mutations and gene fusions, and summary analyses that integrate multiple types of gene and pathway aberrations with clinical data.

Agilent launched new HaloPlex NGS sequencing panels targeting specific disease states: two catalog products, the HaloPlex Cancer Research Panel and Cardiomyopathy Research Panel, plus five predesigned research panels for arrhythmia, ICCG genome regions, X chromosomes, Noonan syndrome and connective tissue disorders.

Bioo Scientific released the NEXTflex Rapid DNA-Seq Kit for Illumina platforms. It enables library construction from 1 ng of DNA in two hours or less.