NEW YORK – Agilent Technologies and Oxford BioDynamics (OBD) said on Wednesday that they have signed a supply and resale agreement for the manufacture and sale of OBD's newly launched EpiSwitch Explorer Array Kit.
As part of the agreement, Agilent will supply a custom-made SurePrint G3CGH Microarray for UK-based OBD's research-use-only kit, which will include OBD's 3D Genome Probes. OBD holds exclusive supply and distribution rights for the kit.
OBD said that its EpiSwitch platform builds molecular diagnostic classifiers for predicting patient therapy response, patient prognosis, disease diagnosis and subtyping, and residual disease testing. The Explorer Array Kit will help researchers analyze a genome's 3D architecture and its role in gene regulation.
OBD will also offer access to its online EpiSwitch Portal to ensure array data analytics and provide biological contexts for readouts. The portal contains the EpiSwitch Analytical Portal, which allows statistical analysis of 3D-array data, and the EpiSwitch Data Portal, which provides options to map data to the genome.
"EpiSwitch is already well validated in pharma biomarker discovery and has proven capable of stratifying patients for many biological indications," John Burrows, CEO of OBD, said in a statement. "Partnering with … Agilent gives important third-party validation to our technology and working together will strengthen the commercial offering of our EpiSwitch Explorer Array Kit to the global research community."
Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.
"We are excited to secure this partnership with Oxford BioDynamics demonstrating how arrays can enable the development of new technologies, such as EpiSwitch, beyond gene expression and CGH," Kevin Meldrum, VP and general manager of Agilent Genomics, said in a statement.
OBD previously used the EpiSwitch platform to develop its recently launched COVID-19 Severity Test, EpiSwitch CST.