Nanogen Begins Shipments of NanoChip 400 Systems
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Nanogen, Inc. has announced that it has begun shipping its second-generation instrument, the NanoChip® 400, both domestically and to Europe.
The general laboratory system for molecular biology applications utilizes the company's improved NanoChip® 400-site electronic microarray, upon which homebrew molecular assays can be developed in clinical and research laboratories.
Building on features customers valued with the first-generation NanoChip® Molecular Biology Workstation and 100-site chip, the multi-purpose system combines sample and reagent handling robotics with detection in an instrument half the size of its predecessor.
The open platform creates the opportunity for laboratories to use one system for multiple molecular applications, including the detection of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and multi-gene targets like those tested for pharmacogenetics.
The NanoChip® 400 cartridge used with the system is a blank microarray template that constructs the user defined panel of genetic markers on one chip at the time of sample testing.
The cartridge has 400 test sites that can be used for any combination of multiple genes and multiple samples and can be used multiple times until the 400 test sites are used.
This cartridge reusability makes the NanoChip® 400 system easier to use than research-grade thousand-gene chip arrays and suitable than polymerase chain reaction (PCR) when multi-allele or multi-gene assays are of interest.
“I am very excited about the new instrument,” said Steve Cook, manager of molecular diagnostics at Lahey Clinic in Boston.
“I think it is going to be great for us as a customer and great for Nanogen as a vendor. The walk-away capability will be a valuable improvement over the Molecular Biology Workstation and will allow us to consolidate and streamline our workflow. This capability may open up the instrument for us to do more homebrew designs.”
“Our first deliveries of the NanoChip® 400 system mark a significant milestone in the development of our company,” said Howard C. Birndorf, Nanogen chairman and CEO.
“Moving products out of development and into our commercial product portfolio will contribute significantly to our revenue in the coming quarters.”
“We're delighted to be able to offer new tools that facilitate the understanding of disease and can ultimately be used to improve the health of patients.”
The NanoChip 400® is manufactured by Nanogen's collaborator Hitachi Instruments Group under the Food and Drug Administration's Quality System Regulation. Nanogen has self-certified the instrument for European CE Mark.
