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Agena Bioscience, nRichDX Partnering on Tools for Liquid Biopsy Applications

NEW YORK – Agena Bioscience and nRichDX said Friday that they have entered a commercial partnership to co-promote their products to researchers developing liquid biopsy applications on Agena's MassArray platform.

Under the partnership, the companies will use Irvine, California-based nRichDX's Revolution Sample Prep System to extract rare analytes like cell-free tumor DNA for analysis on San Diego-based Agena's mass spectrometry-based MassArray platform.

According to the partners, the Revolution Sample Prep System extracts higher yields, including the rare variant transcripts from bodily fluids, increasing the sensitivity of the MassArray platform.

"Agena is pleased to collaborate with nRichDX to provide clinical investigators with research solutions that can deliver greater assay sensitivity and improved detection of rare analytes on the MassArray platform," Darryl Irwin, VP of scientific affairs at Agena, said in a statement. "Liquid biopsy test developers are looking forward to the creation of highly sensitive assays that can use body fluids as inputs, especially in the area of early detection of cancer which requires extraction retrieval and detection of the rarest of alterations."

Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.

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