Company Announcements

Battelle named NicheVision as a distributor of its ExactID software for forensics in July.

In August, Illumina, Warburg Pincus and Sutter Hill formed Helix, a company to empower consumers to discover insights into their genomes through an ecosystem of content partners. The company received over $100 million in financing commitments, and Illumina CEO Jay Flatley serves as chairman. The first two collaborators are the Center for Individualized Medicine at Mayo Clinic and LabCorp. In 2016, Helix is expected to be $0.10 dilutive to Illumina’s non-GAAP EPS guidance.

Chinese diagnostics firm Burning Rock will develop advanced clinical applications for molecular diagnostics in oncology based on Illumina’s NGS instrument components and related reagents.

In September, Asuragen entered into a collaboration agreement with Illumina that establishes a framework for the development and commercialization of sequencing-based companion diagnostics in partnership with pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms. Asuragen’s Quantidex product will be used on Illumina’s MiSeqDx instrument.

Illumina announced a strategic collaboration with China-based Amoy Diagnostics, under which Amoy will develop and commercialize oncology-related tests based on Illumina NGS platforms.

In October, Lucigen announced it received Illumina CSPro certification for NGS.

Product Introductions

In September, ArcherDx launched the Archer VariantPlex p53 Panel to detect germline and somatic mutations of the TP53 gene.

BioDiscovery released Nexus Copy Number 8.0 for research labs, featuring the ability to extract copy number information from NGS platforms.

Roche NimbleGen introduced the SeqCap EZ MedExome Target Enrichment Kit for whole-exome sequencing.

ViaGenetics released Genesis 2.0 for real-time sharing and analysis of genetic data.

In October, HTG Molecular Diagnostics introduced the HTG EdgeSeq Immuno-Oncology Assay for digitally measuring the mRNA expression of 549 genes.

Illumina launched the BaseSpace Professional and Enterprise Editions, fully integrated LIMS solutions and advanced infrastructure upgrades. The Enterprise Edition adds greater security and convenience. BaseSpace grew 75% year over year in new users.

Illumina expanded the rights of use for the HiSeq X Sequencing System to allow whole-genome sequencing of nonhuman species.

QIAGEN launched a hereditary disease solution for research labs to accelerate solve rates in diagnostic odyssey cases.