Company Announcements

In February, LifeMap Sciences announced a commercial partnership agreement with Toldot Genomics involving their respective GeneCards Suite and next-generation sequencing (NGS) data-analysis capabilities.

BD Life Sciences and Cellular Research announced the joint promotion of their respective BD FACS single-cell sorter and Precise assays for single-cell sequencing.

In February, Illumina received regulatory approval from Health Canada for the MiSeqDx Instrument, the MiSeqDx Cystic Fibrosis 139-Variant Assay and the MiSeqDx Cystic Fibrosis Clinical Sequencing Assay.

Product Introductions

Sigma Life Science released in February Next-Gen Sequencing Oligos, custom NGS adapters that improve target-sequence assembly.

Illumina introduced the NeoPrep Library Prep System to simplify library preparation using Illumina kits. It consists of the NeoPrep desktop instrument, disposable library cards and reagents. It is the first commercially available product that performs library prep, quantification and normalization in a single, self-contained instrument, according to the firm. Six libraries can be created per run.

Cellular Research launched the Precise Assays for targeted RNA-Seq using single cells. They combine molecular and sample indexing in 96- and 384-sample formats.

10X Genomics introduced the GemCode Platform, a molecular barcoding and analysis platform consisting of instrumentation, reagents and software, which delivers long-range information, including haplotype phasing, structural variation and de novo assembly.

Agilent Technologies launched OneSeq for cytogenetic research, calling it the first all-in-one target-enrichment product for NGS. It is designed to detect and analyze CNVs, loss of heterozygosity and mutations in a single reaction for constitutional-disease research.

Agilent Technologies released the HaloPlexHS target-enrichment system for identifying low-frequency somatic variants in solid tumors and hematological cancers, and the ClearSeq Comprehensive Cancer research panel for the analysis of many oncogenes and tumor suppressors.

GENALICE added a cloud version via Amazon Web Services of its GENALICE VAULT DNA data-analysis solution.

Kapa Biosystems launched the KAPA HyperPlus Kit, an integrated DNA-fragmentation and library-preparation solution, and the KAPA Stranded RNA-Seq Kit with RiboErase for efficient rRNA depletion.

DNAnexus announced in March that it is offering whole-genome assembly using long-read–sequencing data generation by the PacBio RS II. Using the platform, a human-genome assembly at 50–80x coverage can be completed in less than 48 hours at a price of $5,000–$10,000.