NEW YORK – Beckman Coulter Life Sciences announced on Wednesday that it has formed a a co-exclusive distribution agreement with Rarity Bioscience to extend the capabilities of flow cytometry to clinical molecular research. Financial terms of the partnership were not disclosed.
Under the agreement, Beckman will market and distribute the Rarity Bioscience superRCA assays. The technology uses flow cytometry and results in a sensitivity that is logarithmically higher than digital PCR to accelerate the detection of mutations, Beckman said in a statement.
"Our strategic decision to develop superRCA technology for use with widely adopted flow cytometry platforms was driven by the goal of enabling rapid scalability and providing laboratories and researchers with immediate access to high-precision molecular testing," said Linus Bosaeus, CEO of Rarity Bioscience, a spinout of Sweden's Uppsala University.
The high-throughput platform combines a rolling circle amplification- and padlock probe-based molecular assay with a flow cytometry readout for multiplex detection of sequence variants including single point DNA mutations, Danaher subsidiary Beckman Coulter said in a statement.
"This milestone reinforces our relentless commitment to providing cutting edge and innovative technologies to laboratories while delivering cost and time savings," said Pietro Lopriore, VP and general manager of the flow cytometry business unit at Beckman Coulter. The technology is applicable to molecular measurable residual disease (MRD) research, Lopriore added, noting that the assays complement Beckman's DURAClone RE MRD flow cytometry panels.