Friday March 29, 2:26 pm Eastern Time
Agilent Expects To Introduce New Bioanalyzer In Late '02
By: Bill Richards, Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
SEATTLE -(Dow Jones)- Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A - news) Inc. (A) says it expects to introduce an automated, high-volume version of its lab-on-a-chip bioanalyzer late this year that will extend the range of theADVERTISEMENT
$700 million gel electrophoresis market.
Anthony Owen, marketing manager for Agilent's Chemical Analysis Group, told Dow Jones Newswires the new automated device is currently being developed at Agilent's research facility in Karlsruhe, Germany , in a partnership with Calibre Mentor Graphics, of Mountain View , Calif.
"They bring their expertise in microfluidics while we are developing the instrumentation platform," Owen said. He said Agilent will also handle the marketing and sales for the new bioanalyzer.
Agilent is planning to introduce the device, which is presently calls the Automated Lab-on-a-Chip Platform, or ALP, in November or December of this year, Owen said.
Currently, genomics and proteomics analyses of DNA samples are primarily done individually, with researchers examining the genomic makeup of DNA samples at computer workstations. The process, known as gel electrophoresis, is a $700 million to $1 billion market that Agilent says has doubled in the last year.
"A lot of it is tedious analysis, done on an individual basis, involving thousands of samples," Owen said.
Agilent's new bioanalyzer, he said, will allow high-volume analysis of DNA, RNA and protein samples. "We're going to come in on top of the current gel electrophoresis technology," Owen said.
"We expect to drive the market substantially higher for this kind of high- throughput DNA, RNA and protein assay," he said.
Owen said the new high-throughput technology will probably be more expensive up front than current gel electrophoresis techniques. "Ours will be more expensive at the front end," he said, "but the quality of the data we will be able to produce will be much more advanced."
Pharmaceutical companies care more about data quality than upfront cost in the current competitive genomics and proteomics market, he said.
Agilent's new analyzer will also produce its results in consistent, digital form, Owen said. "Right now, he said, gel electrophoresis is something of a black art, with results essentially produced in the form of Polaroid pictures. You tend to get different results when the same sample is analyzed on different machines."
With digital data, he said, Agilent's new analyzer will be able to produce consistent results no matter where a DNA sample is handled. "That kind of reproducible data is what the FDA is looking for these days," Owen said.
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