NEW YORK, June 8 - Five academic research centers have purchased Sequenom's MassArray system for genotyping analysis, the company said Friday.
The University of Massachusetts Medical School, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and the Weizmann Institute of Science purchased MassArray systems for the first time, and Boston University School of Medicine purchased its second system, according to a statement. Sequenom, of San Diego, now has its MassArray technology installed at a total of 33 industry and academic sites.
Typically, a MassArray system costs between $400,000 and $1.1 million, depending on consumables, the company has said.
The MassArray system, first commercialized in early 2000, provides a platform for genotyping experiments without the use of fluorescence or other tagging techniques. Instead, the company's technology applies MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry directly to fragments of DNA to detect SNPs.