NATICK, Mass. — Pillar Biosciences, an NGS diagnostics company based in Boston, MA, announced today that Pillar® ONCO/Reveal™ NGS panels are now compatible with Illumina®, Ion Torrent™, and MGI™ sequencing platforms. Additionally, Pillar has entered into a co-marketing agreement with MGI that will highlight the compatibility between Pillar’s NGS assays and MGI’s sequencing platform-agnostic sample prep robotics.

Pillar’s SLIMamp® target enrichment chemistry previously provided a simplified, robust solution for time-limited clinical diagnostic labs performing Illumina sequencing. Now Pillar’s chemistry is also compatible with Ion Torrent and MGI sequencing platforms. With Pillar’s platform-agnostic assays, users can select Pillar panels or design custom panels that fit their specific sequencing technology.

“With this announcement, Pillar technology meets you wherever you are,” said Pillar CEO, Dr. Gang Song, “We’re proud to be your global partner in NGS-based diagnostics.”

Pillar’s SLIMamp® target enrichment chemistry enables single tube amplification during NGS library preparation, which makes the simplified workflow especially amenable to automation. Pillar’s ONCO/Reveal™ NGS panels are now compatible with MGI’s sample preparation platforms.

MGI, a sequencing and life science instrumentation company headquartered in Shenzhen, China, has entered into a co-marketing agreement with Pillar regarding their line of high-throughput automated sample preparation systems, including the MGISP-960 and MGISP-100. MGI’s state-of-the-art library prep systems combine liquid handling capabilities with thermocycling in order to fully automate the entire library preparation process of as many as 96 samples in as little as seven hours.

MGI has agreed to market Pillar’s platform agnostic ONCO/Reveal™ NGS panels to their sequencer customers outside of the US.

“This agreement combines two technologies that really complement each other,” said, Duncan Yu, President of MGI. “We’re excited to work with Pillar to deliver seamlessly integrated automated library preparation.”

“With MGI’s sample prep automation, the hands-on time for our simplified library prep workflows has reached an unprecedented level of efficiency,” said Dr. Song.

Pillar will showcase their panels and MGI’s automated sample prep systems at the upcoming AMP conference in Baltimore. Visit Pillar at booth 2649 for more information.