NEW YORK – WuXi NextCode Genomics and Olink Proteomics on Wednesday announced an agreement making WuXi the exclusive third-party provider of services using Olink's products in China.
The agreement will provide customers in China with access to Olink's proteomics products on a fee-for-service basis and will expand WuXi NextCode's multi-omic research capabilities.
"For many years we have had requests from Chinese customers in pharma and academia to use Olink technology in their research," Olink CEO Jon Heimer said in a statement. "Early indications point to a strong local demand and we very much look forward to taking on this opportunity together with WuXi NextCode."
"We are pleased to become the strategic partner of Olink on the China market to promote Olink technology for detection of actionable protein biomarkers," said Lele Sun, general manager of WuXi NextCode. "With that, WuXi NextCode enters into a new era of providing multi-omics services to its customers, combining its genomics capability with Olink proteomics technology, to serve customers with comprehensive solutions for precision medicine."
Olink's proximity extension assay approach uses pairs of antibodies linked to DNA strands that, upon the antibodies binding to their target, are brought into proximity. They are then extended by a DNA polymerase that creates a new sequence that can be used as a surrogate marker for the target protein.
The company currently offers assays to roughly 1,500 proteins. It plans to expand that number to 3,000 next year and to 4,500 in 2022.