NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Biosearch Technologies today said that it has entered into a new cross-licensing agreement with Qiagen.
The Novato, Calif.-based firm said that the agreement expands its rights to the Scorpions primer technology to include the manufacture, catalogue, and sale of Scorpion primer assays into the research, applied, and infectious disease testing markets. Marc Beal, Biosearch's director of corporate development, noted in a statement that the applied testing markets covered by the license include environmental, animal identity, food, genetically-modified-organism, industrial microbiology, biosecurity, and forensic and human identity testing.
According to Biosearch, the Scorpions technology — which was initially sold by DxS, a UK-based molecular diagnostics firm that was acquired by Qiagen last year — has distinct advantages over linear probed molecular diagnostic methods.
The firm also said that it will become a "Center of Excellence for Scorpions" for designing and manufacturing Scorpions primers and derivative value-added assays. Biosearch also plans to generate and launch Scorpions design software accessible via its website to end-user customers and Qiagen's Scorpions licensees.
The alliance also grants Qiagen worldwide rights to market labeled probes based on Biosearch's Black Hole Quencher dyes for qPCR assays in all applied testing and in vitro diagnostics fields.
Financial and further terms of the agreement were not disclosed.