Austrian molecular diagnostics firm Anagnostics said this week that it is now using Scienion's SciFlexarrayer to produce its cylindrical Hybcell arrays.
Markus Jaquemar, managing director of sales, marketing, and business development at the firm, said that the company together with Scienion developed a tool called the Hybbot to rotate the Hybcell cylinders as the SciFlexarrayer spots them. Using the Hybbot adapter together with the SciFlexarrayer, Anagnostics can produce more than 160 Hybcells at a time, Jaquemar told BioArray News.
Scienion describes its SciFlexArrayers as automated non-contact dispensing systems for ultra-low volume liquid handling of biological samples.
Anagnostics has Scienion's arrayer in house at its headquarters in St. Valentin, outside of Graz, Austria's third largest city. Jaquemar said that the instrument now produces all of Anagnostics' Hybcell-based tests. Previously, Scienion produced its arrays in an R&D setting, he said.
Sony DADC is also using the SciFlexarrayer to produce Hybcells for Anagnostics, Jaquemar said. Anagnostics and Sony have been working together on array production since last fall, with Sony manufacturing some of the components that are used in Anagnostics' products.
CEO Christoph Reschreiter told BioArray News earlier this year that Anagnostics sees itself more of a test and technology developer than a kit manufacturer, and would like to see Sony DADC eventually make all of its products (BAN 7/10/2012). In addition to its work with Anagnostics, Sony DADC is currently manufacturing Quanterix's single molecule array platform (BAN 7/26/2011).
Anagnostics currently sells a number of panels related to drugs of abuse screening, infectious disease monitoring, and oncogene mutation analysis. It obtained a CE-IVD mark for a sepsis assay earlier this year (BAN 10/16/2012). The array detects molecular pathogens and resistance based on DNA and a panel of protein inflammation markers to survey the patient's immune status.
While most commercially available arrays are printed on slides, Anagnostics prints its Hybcell arrays on cylinders that are processed automatically in sample containers by the firm's Hyborg instrument. In a statement, the firm pitched the enhanced detection capabilities offered by its cylindrical array format, plus the reduction in hands on time provided by its automated instrument, as "ideal for routine clinical diagnostics."
Berlin-based Scienion, meantime, has been intent on promoting its arrayers for the production of diagnostic products. The firm announced deals with Procognia and Courtagen, among several other companies, earlier this year (BAN 7/3/2012).
Scienion CEO Holger Eickhoff said in a statement that the production of combined DNA and protein arrays on Anagnostics' Hybcell cylinders demonstrates the "versality" of the firm's arrayers. "Scienion enables the dispensing of any kind of content to any kind of surface such as these novel cylindrical microarrays," he said.
Eickhoff told BioArray News this week that Scienion can support the production of Hybcells at its sites in Berlin and Dortmund in Germany and Princeton, NJ, if Anagnostics' in house resources are not sufficient. He noted that the firms worked together to configure the SciFlexarrayer for producing Hybcells, adding that it required deck changes, including a means to rotate the cylinders to "function nicely on a daily basis."