Qiagen Acquires IBS Planning Sequencing Technology Development Strategy

A few days ago, Qiagen announced that it has acquired Intelligent Bio-Systems, a next-generation sequencing company (hereafter referred to as IBS), and launched an initiative to push the sequencing technology to the molecular diagnostics and clinical research market.

IBS, a privately-held company, released a sequencing instrument called Mini-20 at the "Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities annual meeting" held in March this year. The instrument's price is approximately $120,000 and is expected to be available to early trial users in the second quarter of this year.

The IBS technology is based on the inventor Jingyue Ju obtained in 2006 and Columbia University's exclusive authorized four-color reversible terminatorsequencing chemistry.

According to Qiagen, it is currently in the late stages of the development of a new system that will be based on previous IBS design elements and Qiagen's technology. The first sample-to-result next-generation sequencing project is expected to be launched next year, and parameter details and listing plans will be announced in early 2013.

Qiagen said the system will include new sample preparation techniques and software that can process up to 20 samples in parallel without the need to merge and add barcodes, which can significantly reduce the time and cost of clinical sequencing. Its unique design allows the flow cell and reagents to be continuously loaded during the run, while processing up to 20 different assay types. Many of these features, especially the parallel processing of multiple samples and the continuous addition of reagents, are critical for clinical sequencing.

In addition, Qiagen is also developing two automated alternatives. One is to integrate the sequencing module into the QIAsymphony platform and the other is to integrate the sequencing module with the QIAcube sample preparation system.

In order to solve the informatics program required for the new system, Qiagen said that it has signed a cooperation with SAP. This cooperation will apply SAP's HANA platform to data interpretation of next-generation sequencing.

Qiagen pointed out that the use of next-generation sequencing in clinical research and molecular diagnostics is still challenging, especially the time required for data analysis, as well as regulatory uncertainty and sequencing costs. The multiple features of this initiative are designed to address these challenges and enable next-generation sequencing technologies to be used in areas such as tentative diagnosis, diagnosis of complex diseases, and treatment of cancer patients. Next-generation sequencing technology is expected to complement existing molecular technologies such as real-time quantitative PCR.

Qiagen CEO Peer Schatz said: "The rapid development of next-generation sequencing will enable life sciences researchers to uncover many secrets related to the basic unit of life. Our goal is to provide process solutions for clinical applications, thereby creating new uses for these technologies. It is to develop new drugs and use advanced diagnostics to improve healthcare.Although next-generation sequencing is still considered as a research tool today, we advocate expanding it and providing some applications to meet the needs of clinical research and molecular diagnostic clients. ”

The specific financial terms were not disclosed.