Company Announcements

Under a February partnership agreement, N-of-One and Appistry will jointly market and sell N-of-One’s interpretation services and content together with Appistry’s bioinformatics next-generation sequencing (NGS) analysis solutions and services.

Sweden’s Science for Life Laboratory joined the Illumina Genome Network (IGN) in February, making it the 13th IGN partner and first IGN partner in Europe.

Product Introductions

Enzymatics introduced in February the Archer Targeted Sequencing technology based on Anchored Multiplex PCR and Archer Analysis Pipeline software. The first application is the Archer ALK, RET, ROS1 Fusion Detection Kit, a targeted-sequencing assay that simultaneously detects and identifies fusions of human ALK, RET and ROS1 genes for oncology research. Custom kits are also available.

Bioo Scientific launched NEXTflex Dual-Indexed DNA Barcodes for multiplexing up to 192 samples. They also can be used to multiplex genomic DNA-, RNA- and ChIP-sequencing libraries. The Barcodes have been functionally validated with Illumina sequencing platforms.

Life Technologies introduced the HID-Ion AmpliSeq Identity Panel for the ION PGM system. It enables 50 or more samples to be multiplexed and delivers sample specificity and low match probabilities comparable with a 13-core CODIS STR set.

Life Technologies Ion Chef System for the Ion PGM and Ion Proton NGS systems began shipping in March after a delay, according to a company blog. The Ion Chef simplifies and automates template preparation and chip loading in a single system.

Eppendorf introduced in February the “Illumina-Qualified” epMotion automation method, based on its epMotion liquid handling systems, for Illumina’s TruSeq Stranded Total RNA library-preparation kit.

Swift Biosciences released in March the Accel-NGS 2S DNA Library Kit for Illumina NGS, which provides linear yields from inputs ranging from 10 pg to 1 µg.

Golden Helix introduced SNP & Variation Suite 8.0, which includes the integration of the company’s free genome browser as the new visualization engine and a new Haplotype Trend Regression tool.

N-of-One introduced Variant Interpreter on Illumina’s BaseSpace Apps. The initial release covers 30 prevalent cancer-associated genes that are commonly tested.

Sales/Orders of Note

As of March 10, Illumina had announced purchases of its HiSeq X Ten sequencing system by Macrogen, the Broad Institute, the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, the New York Genome Center, deCODE Genetics (Amgen), Novogene, Human Longevity (two systems) and WuXi PharmaTech’s WuXi Genome Center.