GATC Biotech Soon Opens Sequencing Laboratory in London

Through the GATC London Laboratory, customers benefit from a free courier delivery service of less than 24 hours. In addition, in many cities throughout the UK and Ireland GATC offers a free sample collection service in the evening with overnight shipment directly to the GATC London Laboratory.

NightXpress - Overnight sequencing service
GATC Biotech plans to install a unique “5-to-9” overnight sequencing service, called NightXpress, which will reduce delivery times to just 16 hours from sample collection. From Monday to Friday, DNA samples will be collected for free from 5 pm at defined GATC Sample Collection Points and by 9 am the next morning, including Saturdays, DNA sequencing results will be ready for download. With GATC’s overnight service scientists will gain a head start for follow-up experiments of almost two days. NightXpress will start operations on February 15, 2010, initially with customers in London and surrounding areas.

Peter Pohl, CEO at GATC Biotech comments: “With NightXpress we offer the world’s fastest sequencing service. Being already the first company in Europe to offer commercial sequencing services, GATC Biotech once again sets new standards by delivering mass customized sequencing services with fastest delivery times and at competitive rates.”

The GATC NightXpress service was first launched in Germany in 2007 and GATC now plans to adopt the successful concept for the UK, where the company maintains a subsidiary since 2004. In the past years GATC has built a network of GATC Sample Collection Points that are located in Cambridge, Oxford, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Harwell, London, Liverpool, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and the company plans to extend this network further.

GATC Biotech applies a highly automated sequencing platform for mass customization using technologies such as Applied Biosystems ABI 3730xl, Roche Diagnostics GS FLX and Illumina Genome Analyzer IIx. The GATC London Laboratory, located nearby the Imperial College and UCL is subject to the same stringent quality standards and automation as the laboratories in GATC’s headquarters in Constance, Germany.