Alexandria, Minnesota, USA and Hoddesdon, United Kingdom
11 August 2014
Douglas Scientific and LGC announced today that they have formalized an exclusive distribution agreement for the sale of Douglas Scientific’s innovative Array Tape® Platform.
Under the terms of this agreement LGC will represent and distribute the existing and future Array Tape laboratory automation platforms in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
The combination of disruptive lab automation and KASP™ genotyping assays and reagents, creates a catalyst, driving laboratory productivity and the efficiencies required in genotyping laboratories today.
“This relationship is more than extending the reach of our individual product offerings. It’s about the alignment of two compelling missions. Douglas Scientific exists to make the world a better place with laboratory innovation and LGC is committed to science for a safer world,” says Darren Cook, Executive Vice President of Business Development and Strategy, Douglas Scientific, “If our combined solution results in more food for a growing population, a safer food supply and environment, and faster and less costly diagnostics, then we’ve achieved something much more powerful than we could have independently.”
Giulio Cerroni, Managing Director, Genomics, LGC, comments, “LGC has a great history of working with many diverse companies, consortiums and researchers globally, to increase the understanding of genetic markers in medical research and plant science. Through this new agreement, LGC and Douglas Scientific will further enhance our combined efforts to enable scientists worldwide to reach their goals of feeding the world, curing the world and protecting the world.”
The Array Tape Platform is comprised of Nexar® liquid handling and assay processing system, Soellex® PCR waterbath, Araya® detection, and the Intellics™ Software Suite. The instrumentation enables end-point reactions in Array Tape with small volume reactions (1.6 μL). Array Tape is a continuous polymer strip, serially embossed with reaction wells in customized volumes and formats. The platform is highly compatible with LGC’s KASP genotyping assays and reagents.
LGC’s high-throughput genomics services, offered from UK, US and German laboratories, utilize their own proprietary sbeadex™ DNA extraction chemistry and laboratory-validated genotyping assays, while also taking advantage of their patented fluorescence-based competitive allele-specific PCR (polymerase chain reaction) technique, KASP.
KASP chemistry is an enabling technology that is utilized to genotype known polymorphisms such as SNPS and InDels in the targeted DNA.
LGC scientists have contributed significantly to the development of new genotyping technologies, making affordable projects accessible to a broad range of customers, independent of project size. To date, they have extracted DNA from over 10 million samples, as well as processed over 1 billion PCR reactions.
The combined technologies offered via this relationship will provide a fast, cost effective, and robust solution for high-throughput genetic analysis that significantly simplifies sample preparation, decreases cost per sample, and increases sample throughput. Together, Douglas Scientific and LGC’s Genomics Division will work with customers in the pharmaceuticals, agricultural biotechnology, food, environment, government, academic, security and sports sectors to achieve excellence in investigative, diagnostic and measurement science and to provide a disruptive and complete solution for any high-throughput laboratories currently using PCR technologies.
About Douglas Scientific
Douglas Scientific is dedicated to making the world a better place by delivering innovative laboratory automation. Array Tape™ is engineered to be a ubiquitous media for high throughput processing, driving more data at lower costs. Douglas Scientific is a wholly owned company of Kingdom Enterprises., with corporate offices located at 3600 Minnesota Street, Alexandria, MN 56308.
About LGC
LGC is an international life sciences measurement and testing company, which builds upon leading positions in sustainably growing markets. LGC provides reference materials, proficiency testing, genomics and analytical products and services which underpin the safety, health and security of the public to customers in the Pharmaceutical, Agricultural Bioscience, Food and Environment, Government and Academia, Security and Sports markets.
With headquarters in Teddington, South West London, LGC employs over 2,000 staff, operating out of 22 countries worldwide. Its operations are extensively accredited to international quality standards such as ISO/IEC 17025 and ISO Guide 34.
With a history dating back to 1842, LGC has been home to the UK Government Chemist for more than 100 years. It is the designated UK National Measurement Institute for Chemical and Bioanalytical measurement, providing metrology research, calibration and testing. LGC was privatized in 1996 and is now majority-owned by funds managed by Bridgepoint.
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