By Monica Heger
This story was originally published on Feb. 2.
Roche realized a 17 percent revenue increase in its sequencing and array business last year, driven largely by sales of its GS Junior, the company reported last week.
The company's Applied Science business area, which includes its sequencing and array businesses, reported CHF 868 million in sales, which was flat compared to 2009 but represented a 4 percent year-over-year increase in local currencies.
The company did not break out specific sales figures for its product lines, but said that sales of the Junior increased in the double-digits. Overall sales in the Applied Science division, meantime, were negatively impacted by lower demand for H1N1 testing.
The company saw "good underlying growth, particularly in the sequencing business," Daniel Day, Roche's chief operating officer of diagnostics, said in a presentation.
Additionally, the company plans to launch several sequencing-related products in 2011, including primer sets for HLA genotyping on the Junior system and GS FLX, and new sequencing chemistry, Titanium XL, to enable longer read lengths on the GS FLX system.
Also in 2010, Roche signed two sequencing-related agreements, including one with IBM to co-develop a nanopore sequencer based on IBM's DNA transistor technology (IS 7/6/2010), and another with London-based DNA Electronics to develop a sequencing platform based on 454's long-read chemistry and DNA Electronics' electrochemical detection technology (IS 11/2/2010).
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