We have a trio of stories this month, with Agilent forging deals with Cartagenia and Scion, QIAGEN partnering with BGI and N-of-One announcing that CellNetix has adopted its technology.

 

 

SANTA CLARA, Calif.—On May 4, Agilent Technologies Inc. and Cartagenia announced that they had signed a definitive agreement under which Agilent will acquire Cartagenia, a provider of software and services for variant assessment and reporting of clinical genomics data from next-generation sequencing and microarrays that is based in Boston and Leuven, Belgium.

 

“Cartagenia’s approach to enabling the interpretation of clinical genomics data is revolutionary,” said Jacob Thaysen, president of Agilent’s Diagnostics and Genomics Group. “We look forward to providing Cartagenia’s software solutions to our clinical genetics and molecular oncology customers and to providing Cartagenia’s existing customers with access to our global service and support network. Together, Agilent and Cartagenia can help remove bottlenecks inherent in analysis, interpretation and reporting clinical data, resulting in faster answers for patients.”

 

Cartagenia employs 36 people, all of whom will be offered employment with Agilent. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

 

In late April, Agilent and Scion Instruments announced a gas chromatography (GC) instrument control agreement that will provide customers the freedom to operate instruments from both manufacturers in each company’s chromatography data systems. The companies will exchange development documentation and royalty-free licenses of driver software for the integration of each other’s GC instruments into their respective chromatography data systems. With the development of these drivers, GC systems from either manufacturer will be integrated into Agilent’s OpenLAB CDS EZChrom Edition and Scion’s CompassCDS chromatography data systems.

 

With Agilent’s Instrument Control Framework and Rapid Control driver technology, Scion’s 3000- and 400-series gas chromatographs—including the latest SCION 436 and 456 models—can be used with Agilent’s OpenLAB CDS software. Likewise, Scion’s CompassCDS will support Agilent’s 6890 and 7890 Series gas chromatographs.

 

“We are continuously expanding OpenLAB CDS multivendor instrument control capabilities in collaboration with other analytical instrument manufacturers and are working to standardize analytical instrument control across data systems, resulting in the best-working and best-tested software for our mutual customers,” said John Sadler, Agilent vice president and general manager of software and informatics

 

 

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.—QIAGEN N.V. announced in May that it had expanded its relationship with China-based BGI, said to be the world’s largest genomics organization, to provide QIAGEN’s Ingenuity Variant Analysis in integrated bioinformatics for all customers of BGI’s sequencing services.

 

Under the reseller agreement, BGI customers will receive sequencing data generated from their samples through Ingenuity Variant Analysis’ secure, cloud-based environment and gain access to its leading comprehensive gene variant data and genomic interpretation applications. BGI will provide Ingenuity Variant Analysis to customers in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with plans to expand to other regions throughout the year.

 

“Bioinformatics solutions from QIAGEN are growing rapidly as scientists and healthcare professionals increasingly use genomic information to guide research and provide precise diagnosis for medical decision-making,” said Laura Furmanski, head of QIAGEN’s Bioinformatics Business Area. “We are committed to working with leading organizations such as BGI to make these improvements in life possible.”

 

“Coupling BGI’s world-class sequencing with the deep bioinformatics of Ingenuity Variant Analysis will give researchers an enhanced, integrated way to seamlessly move quickly from raw data to valuable insights,” added Yingrui Li, chief scientist of BGI.

 

 

LEXINGTON, Mass.—In mid-May, N-of-One Inc., a provider of clinical interpretation evidence, announced that CellNetix Pathology and Laboratories had adopted N-of-One’s new clinical trial matching solution, TrialMatch, as well as N-of-One clinical interpretation evidence services. Under this agreement, N-of-One will provide industry-leading clinical interpretation evidence as well as molecular profile-based clinical trial matching for CellNetix next-generation sequencing cancer genomics tests. Financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

 

“Clinical trial matching is central to enabling clinicians to identify the best therapeutic options for their cancer patients,” said Dr. Anna Berry, medical director of molecular diagnostics at CellNetix and scientific director of the Personalized Medicine Program at the Swedish Cancer Institute. “CellNetix has adopted N-of-One TrialMatch and clinical interpretation evidence services because together they provide the most comprehensive, patient-specific molecular profile to inform high-quality clinician decision-making.”

 

“The key to the success of TrialMatch is N-of-One clinical interpretation evidence,” said Jennifer Levin Carter, chief medical officer of N-of-One. “Successful clinical trial matching requires patient-specific molecular profiling at the gene-variant-disease level based on comprehensive, up-to-date scientific and clinical evidence, which is a fundamental capability of N-of- One.”