NEW YORK, Aug. 8 – Orchid Biosciences said on Wednesday its British subsidiary, Cellmark Diagnostics, won a UK-government contract to provide genotyping services to help British farmers breed sheep with increased resistance to scrapie.

Under the terms of the three-year contract, Orchid will use its SNP-IT technology to generate several million scrapie genotypes a year. The contract may be renewed for another two years.