Company Announcements

In July, LabCorp and Cancer Genetics joined Thermo Fisher Scientific’s Next Generation Sequencing Companion Dx Center of Excellence Program. Each partner will participate in oncology-focused clinical trials in collaboration with pharmaceutical companies and Thermo Fisher. The companies may also qualify for early access to Thermo Fisher’s pipeline of novel platforms and assays to assist with development of Oncomine-branded solutions.

NuGEN Technologies and Cambridge Epigenetix (CEGX) announced in August a co-exclusive license covering the manufacturing and integration of CEGX’s TrueMethyl technology for oxidative bisulfite sequencing with NuGEN’s library preparation kits.

In August, 10x Genomics named Eric Whitaker as principal legal officer (see Executive Briefing). Most recently, he served as chief legal officer at cloud computing software company Nutanix.

10x Genomics named Mathai Mammen, MD, PhD, to its Board in August. He currently serves as global head, science and development, at the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

Fluidigm entered into a licensing agreement with Baylor Genetics in August to offer an NGS library prep assay that enables efficient sequencing of the CFTR (Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator) gene. Fluidigm obtained the rights to commercialize the assay for research use with its Juno automated microfluidic system.

In August, the Abuquerque Business Post reported that the state of New Mexico’s Catalyst Business Fund invested $1.5 million in Armonica Technologies, which is developing a long-read sequencing technology.

DNAnexus announced in August a collaboration with Saphetor to build a sample-in, report-out genomic analysis solution. Saphetor’s technology for the annotation and classification of genetic variants is now available on DNAnexus’s cloud-based platform.

Edico Genome announced the availability of its DRAGEN end-to-end platform solutions for NGS data analysis on DNAnexus’ genome informatics and data management platform.

Product Introduction

Sophia Genetics launched in May its Whole Exome and Clinical Exome Solution, accessible through the company’s DDM analytical platform for clinical diagnostics. The offering also includes DNA sample preparation kits. The pattern-recognition technology enables a database search that identifies and retrieves matching variants regardless of the variants’ representations.

In August, Bioline released the JetSeq Clean Kit, a paramagnetic bead–based clean-up system for purification of nucleic acid fragments for NGS.

Swift Biosciences introduced in August the Accel-NGS 2S Indexed Adapters for multiplexed sequencing on Illumina platforms. The set of indices provides the largest set of commercially available single indices for high-throughput genomic sequencing applications, according to the company. The indices enable the multiplexing of up to 96 single-indexed samples and 768 dual-indexed samples per run.

In August, PerkinElmer Genetics launched affordable Whole Exome Sequencing (WES) and Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) services, which are offered in combination with biochemical profiling targeted for rapid WES and WGS for genetic disease diagnostics.

Geneformics Data Systems released in August the Geneformics D, a distributed cloud compression solution for genomics data that increases the efficiency and speed of upload, download, storage and archiving.

Lexogen unveiled in August a Small RNA-Seq Library Prep Kit. The protocol can be completed in 5 hours, with just 1 hour hands-on time. Up to 96 barcodes are included.

In August, Illumina launched the BaseSpace Variant Interpreter, which supports results from targeted enrichment panels, whole exome and genome data, and fully supports review of germline VCFs (Variant Call Formats) and family-based analysis. The product will be free until the end of year.

Sales/Orders of Note

In June, Qlucore announced that diagnostic firm Immunovia is using the Qlucore Omics Explorer for data analysis.

New England Biolabs announced in August that the Wellcome Sanger Trust Institute chose to implement its NEBNext Ultra II Directional RNA Library Prep Kit, which requires a minimum input of 100 ng total RNA for a standard pipeline.

In August, Edico Genome announced a contract with the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) and the National Cancer Institute for the use of its DRAGEN (Dynamic Read Analysis for Genomics) Bio-IT platform.  The organizations purchased the DRAGEN Somatic pipeline and Genome pipeline. The NHGRI signed a four-year contract.

Pacific Biosciences announced in August an agreement to sell 10 Sequel Systems to genomic services provider Novogene, giving Novogene the capacity to run up to 20 Sequels Systems at a time.

In August, Seven Bridges was selected to build a new data center in partnership with the Center for Data Driven Discovery in Biomedicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a consortium of academic research institutes. The Center will establish the Kids First Data Resource Center, which will bring together harmonized, large-scale, pediatric cancer and structural birth defects data.