SAN DIEGO, May 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Agena
Bioscience, Inc., a portfolio company of Telegraph Hill Partners
(THP), today acquired the Bioscience business of Sequenom, Inc.
(NASDAQ: SQNM), which sells the MassARRAY® System for mass
spectrometry-based detection of nucleic acids in research and
clinical laboratories. Agena Bioscience has retained the employees
of the acquired segment and will remain headquartered in
San Diego, California.
Agena Bioscience aims to advance the MassARRAY system, a
proprietary platform used in unlocking biological understanding
from genetic studies. The vision is to leverage the unique
capabilities of the MassARRAY platform and make it an informative
and cost-effective genetic analysis tool for use in clinical
practice.
"Our team has been greatly impressed by the MassARRAY platform's
power to deliver accurate and cost-effective characterization of
nucleic acids. Sequenom management and THP agree that this
transaction will allow the highly talented staff of the Bioscience
business to focus their energies on expanding the potential of the
platform. We are delighted to accelerate this transformation
through the support of THP's growth capital," stated Matt Mackowski, Chairman of Telegraph Hill
Partners.
Agena Bioscience also announced that John Lillig has joined the company as Chairman
and interim CEO. Lillig is a senior life sciences and diagnostics
industry executive with more than 30 years' experience in building
and growing businesses in the life science instruments, reagents,
and clinical diagnostics markets.
"MassARRAY has become a fundamental tool for genomic research.
We believe it will have a similar impact as a high throughput and
cost effective workhorse technology for mutation detection and
targeted genomic analysis of cancer and other diseases in the
clinical laboratory setting as well," said Lillig.
Utilized in more than 2,000 published research studies, the
MassARRAY technology incorporates MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry for
highly sensitive and specific interrogation of tens to hundreds of
multiplexed genetic biomarkers at a low cost point. The MassARRAY
instrument and accompanying custom and predesigned assay kits have
been used to validate candidate markers at a high sample
throughput, enabling statistically significant correlations to
clinically relevant phenotypes. The results of these studies
subsequently are used to develop molecular diagnostics.
Agena Bioscience will enhance the MassARRAY System with expanded
hardware automation, software functionality, high value assay
content, and resources to support its growing use in basic,
agricultural, and clinical research. The company also intends to
extend the MassARRAY platform into the in vitro diagnostic
market with the IMPACT Dx™ System, for which a Premarket 510(k)
Notification is pending with the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration.
About Agena Bioscience
Agena Bioscience is a San Diego,
CA based life sciences and clinical diagnostics company that
offers the MassARRAY® System. The system is a highly sensitive,
quantitative method for nucleic acid detection via MALDI-TOF mass
spectrometry for high-throughput genotyping and mutation profiling
for cancer and other disease research, companion diagnostics,
pharmacogenomics, epigenetics, clinical genetics, ag-bio genetics,
and biobanking molecular sample identification.
www.agenabioscience.com
About Telegraph Hill Partners
Telegraph Hill Partners, founded in 2001 and based in San Francisco, CA, invests in commercial stage
life science, medical technology and healthcare companies.
www.telegraphhillpartners.com
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SOURCE Agena Bioscience