Company Announcements

MolecularMD, a developer of specialty molecular diagnostics for oncology, announced in June an agreement with Illumina that establishes a framework for potential collaborations for the development and commercialization of sequencing-based companion diagnostics in support of biopharma drug development programs.

In June, Illumina and Elsevier R&D Solutions announced a collaboration to integrate use of Pathway Studio, Elsevier’s database of experimental data and disease models, with Illumina’s BaseSpace Correlation Engine platform. All licensed Correlation Engine users now have free access to Pathway Viewer, which enables the quick viewing of a snapshot of the functional relationships among genes.

Merck KGaA, Illumina and Genea announced in June that ZEISS and Hamilton Thorne have joined the Global Fertility Alliance (see IBO 8/15/15).

In July, Annai Systems named James “Jamie” Levine as CEO. He was formerly CEO of Sapphire Energy and of Verenium.

In July, HTG Molecular Diagnostics obtained CE-IVD marking for its HTG EdgeSeq DLBCL (Diffuse Large B-Cell Lymphoma) Cell of Origin Assay and NGS-based HTG EdgeSeq systems.

Rubicon Genomics licensed rights in July to commercialize SomaGenics’ RealSeq-AC library preparation technology for sequencing small RNAs.

Under a July collaboration agreement, HEALTH BioMed (HBM) will submit all molecular diagnostic kits for infectious disease and pharmacogenomics screening it develops on the Applied Biosystems 3500Dx CE platform through the regulatory process with the China FDA following successful validation.

In August, Oxford Nanopore Technologies entered into a license agreement with Xbrane Biopharma for Xbrane’s technology for the production of proteins used with Oxford Nanopore’s DNA sequencing technology.

Personal Genome Diagnostics announced in August an agreement with Illumina to develop two IVD test kits for use on Illumina’s NGS platforms, including kits for the detection and characterization of tumor DNA using both tissue and plasma samples.

Illumina and FlowJo announced in August a partnership to develop and comarket analysis software from single-cell NGS data. The application will integrate with Illumina’s Single Cell RNA BaseSpace app. The software is expected to be available in the first quarter of 2017.

Rubicon Genomics reported that product sales rose 43% in the first half of 2016.

Appistry announced in an August SEC filing that it has raised $4.1 million of a planned $8.6 million equity offering.

In August, HTG Molecular Diagnostics named Ann F. Hanham, PhD, to its Board. She is a founding and managing partner of BAR Capital Management.

Product Introductions

Oxford Gene Technology launched in June the SureSeq FFPE DNA Repair Mix. It is available with the SureSeq panels and designed for increased success and accuracy of hybridization-based NGS for FFPE samples by repairing damage.

In June, Diploid released InHelix software for annotating, visualizing, filtering and reporting CNVs obtained from NGS data. It is designed specifically for CNV analysis in rare-disease diagnostics.

HTG Molecular Diagnostics launched in June the Arizona-based VERI/O lab service for biopharma clients in biomarker research and companion diagnostic development. It formalizes and expands HTG’s traditional service offerings.

In June, WuXi NextCODE announced that its genomics platform is now available on Microsoft Azure.

In July, Thermo Fisher Scientific introduced the Oncomine Lung Cell-Free DNA (cfDNA) Assay designed to target mutations in non-small cell lung cancer samples derived from circulating cfDNA in blood.

SeraCare Life Sciences launched in July the cloud-based iQ NGS QC Management Software for labs to easily track, trend and report NGS QC metrics for CAP CLIA audits.

In July, QIAGEN introduced a portfolio of QIAseq NGS panels based on “Digital NGS” technology, utilizing Molecular Index Technology, allowing unbiased, accurate quantification of DNA, RNA and miRNA with NGS. Customized panel design is available as a service. The products include QIAseq Targeted DNA Panels, QIAseq Targeted RNAscan Panels, QIAseq miRNA NGS Kits and QIAseq Targeted RNAseq Kits.

In August, Roche introduced the HETA-Seq1 Target Enrichment Systems, featuring a streamlined workflow that combines Molecular Inversion Probe technology with molecular barcodes.

Pacific Biosciences released in August updates for its Sequel System, including updated sequencing chemistry, optimized sample clean-up protocols and software for improved read lengths, throughput and accuracy. Customers that upgrade their Systems will no longer be subject to supply constraints for SMRT Cells.

In August, Fluidigm launched the Juno Targeted DNA Sequencing Library Preparation System for medium-to-high-throughput NGS. It combines the Juno microfluidic automation platform with multiplexed target amplification. It features additional capacity to easily scale up to thousands of samples per week and the flexibility to add new markers over time.

Appistry announced in August the upcoming release of GenomePilot 4.0, which will incorporate the capability to perform differential expression analysis of RNA-Seq data.