Wageningen, The Netherlands
June 20, 2013

Today, KeyGene announces that its Sequence-Based Genotyping (SBG) patent portfolio has been strengthened by the grant of United States patent US 8,460,866, entitled "High Throughput Sequence-based Detection of SNPs using Ligation Assays”, protecting sequence-based SNP genotyping methods. The patented methods are used to detect target sequences with probes containing identifier sequences and circumvent limitations of competing genotyping assays relying on interpretation of fluorescence signals. The SBG methods are fully customizable in terms of numbers of SNPs and samples. The grant of this patent strengthens KeyGene´s leading position in the competitive field of SBG for breeding. The granted patent is one of several SBG patents and patent applications the company owns related to next-generation sequencing (NGS)-based discovery and detection of genome variants.
“We are very pleased with the addition of this patent to our steadily growing portfolio of proprietary NGS-based breeding applications”, states Michiel van Eijk, CSO of KeyGene. “SBG is rapidly gaining momentum over more conventional genotyping methods and the market requires products capitalizing on the power and pricing levels of NGS. We are dedicated to provide such products to our clients and partners in the Agriculture and Life Sciences fields”.

KeyGene offers its clients all over the world competitive genotyping solutions to improve and accelerate the development of new crop varieties. Highly accurate and cost-efficient methods for genotyping of known polymorphisms represent an important part of the genotyping market in all species. SBG is an important product of KeyGene’s Advanced Molecular Breeding platform. The company also provides licenses for commercial or research purposes with accompanying training and consultancy to its licensees.

KeyGene is a privately owned, innovative molecular genetics Ag Biotech company with a primary focus on the improvement of 6F (Food, Feed, Fiber, Fuel, Flowers and Fun) crops. KeyGene’s passion is a Green Gene Revolution approach to explore and exploit natural genetic variation in vegetable and other 6F crops. KeyGene delivers sustainable responses to the
world’s needs for yield stability & quality of vegetable and field crops. It supports its strategic partners with cutting edge breeding technologies and plant-based trait platforms to meet their needs. KeyGene performs strategic and applied research with more than 135 employees from all over the world, with state of the art facilities and equipment. KeyGene has its
headquarters in Wageningen, The Netherlands, a subsidiary in Rockville, USA and a Joint Lab with the Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences in Shanghai, China.

Website: http://www.keygene.com

Published: June 20, 2013