Roche and Fluidigm Corporation Enter Worldwide Co-Promotion Agreement

454 Life Sciences, a Roche Company, and Fluidigm Corporation have announced that they have entered a worldwide co-promotional agreement for the companies’ complementary amplicon sample preparation and high-throughput sequencing platforms. Fluidigm’s Access Array System enables automated processing of 48 unique samples against 48 unique amplicons, resulting in PCR products which are ready for emPCR amplification and sequencing with 454 Life Sciences’ GS Junior or GS FLX System.

The partnership offers users a robust and streamlined workflow that minimizes the number of manual steps required for targeted sequencing applications, including genotyping and rare variant detection.

Analysis of disease associated regions and panels of genes by sequencing PCR products is critical in areas of oncology, immunology and virology research. 454 Sequencing Systems enable rapid and comprehensive analysis of large numbers of samples, but have shifted the bottleneck to amplicon sample preparation, a process which can take weeks using traditional approaches.

“We believe that the Access Array System and the GS Junior System are extremely complementary, allowing analysis of large numbers of sample/amplicon combinations in an affordable workflow, without the need for complicated liquid handling,” explained Christopher McLeod, President and CEO of 454 Life Sciences. “In essence, a single Access Array plate on a single GS Junior System run generates as much data as hundreds, even thousands, of 96-well plates analyzed on a capillary sequencing system.”

“The combination of the GS Junior System with our Access Array System delivers a potent solution to life science researchers,” said Gajus Worthington, President and CEO of Fluidigm Corporation. “Fluidigm and 454 Life Sciences are committed to providing capabilities that will help speed researchers to breakthrough biological discoveries.”