Agena Bioscience Announces Collaboration With PerkinElmer

SAN DIEGO, Aug. 21, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Agena Bioscience (Agena) announced today that they have entered into a collaboration with PerkinElmer, incorporating the LabChip® GX Touchtm nucleic acid analyzer for quality assessment and quantitation of DNA in the upfront workflow of Agena's MassARRAY® system. The companies have focused on targeting ctDNA in oncology liquid biopsy, where the combined systems support a low cost, yet highly robust, single-day sample to results workflow for laboratories.

"We found the speed of Agena's MassARRAY® workflow and the sensitivity of their UltraSEEK® liquid biopsy assay to be an ideal pairing with the rapid quality assessment using our LabChip GX Touch system," said Mark Dupal, PerkinElmer's Global Portfolio Manager of Automation and Microfluidics, Applied Genomics.

PerkinElmer's LabChip GX Touch nucleic acid analyzer provides accurate electrophoretic visual quality assessment and quantitation down to 25 pg/µl for DNA in as little as 30 seconds with flexible sample throughput options including 96-well and 384-well. This provides a streamlined upfront process to Agena's 96 and 384-chip systems and the UltraSEEK® chemistry for liquid biopsy.

"The LabChip GX Touch system gives our customers a new option to analyze DNA quality that is consistent with the overall value proposition that we offer," said Mickie Henshall, VP of Marketing at Agena Bioscience. "We look forward to working with PerkinElmer to provide this comprehensive solution with our cost effective and rapid workflows."

In evaluations performed by Agena's Scientific Affairs team, the LabChip system ensured that sufficient DNA was present in the sample to achieve the sensitivity capabilities of the UltraSEEK chemistry while efficiently identifying samples compromised by pre-analytical variables that could result in false negative results.

"Controlling pre-analytical variables is an important component of delivering robust reproducible liquid biopsy analysis. The combination of LabChip GX Touch nucleic acid analyzer's sample qualification with UltraSEEK assay's highly sensitive, multiplexed chemistry delivers a powerful liquid biopsy sample-to-result solution," said Darryl Irwin, Sr. Director of Scientific Affairs at Agena Bioscience. "We believe this collaboration will provide many benefits to customers by optimizing their liquid biopsy performance."

About Agena Bioscience
Agena Bioscience develops, manufactures, and supplies genetic analysis systems and reagents, including the MassARRAY^® System. The system is a highly sensitive, cost-effective, mass spectrometry-based platform for high-throughput genetic analysis, and is used globally in diverse research fields such as cancer profiling for solid tumors and liquid biopsies, inherited genetic disease testing, pharmacogenetics, agricultural genomics, and clinical research. For more information about Agena, visit www.agenabio.com.

SOURCE Agena Bioscience