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Beckman Coulter, Seegene Ink MDx Supply Agreement

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) — Beckman Coulter and Seegene yesterday announced after the close the market an agreement under which Seegene will manufacture reagents designed exclusively for Beckman Coulter's new Veris MDx sample-to-answer molecular diagnostics system.

Specifically, Beckman Coulter will incorporate Seegene's dual-priming oligonucleotide (DPO), tagging oligonucleotide capture and extension (TOCE), and MuDT assay chemistries into its MDx platform, Beckman Coulter CSO Richard Creager said in a statement.

"We expect to be able to quickly add to the menu we offer on Veris with the Seegene multiplex reagents that enable simultaneous and multiple detection and identification of various types of pathogens in a single test," added Creager, who is also senior vice president of the MDx Business Unit at Beckman Coulter, a Danaher company.

Beckman Coulter received CE marking for the Veris MDx system and an associated assay for cytomegalovirus viral load in May. The instrument features fully automated nucleic acid extraction, and quantitative or qualitative real-time PCR using five different detection channels.

The company said in May that it expected to submit the platform for US Food and Drug Administration clearance in 2015.

Meantime, Seegene's various PCR chemistries enable highly multiplexed target amplification using existing multi-channel real-time PCR instruments, essentially extending their multiplexing capabilities.

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