NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Illumina and Laboratory Corporation of America have signed a multi-year supply agreement for Illumina's next-gen sequencing instruments and microarray equipment, the companies said today.
The deal gives LabCorp expanded rights to use Illumina's instruments to develop, validate, and market laboratory-developed tests to clinicians in the US and Canada.
LabCorp will be able to purchase a broader range of Illumina's products to develop new diagnostic tools for genetic testing, oncology, transplant medicine, and forensics, in addition to other applications. Currently, LabCorp is using the technology to develop human leukocyte antigen tests, which it plans to introduce this year.
"The Illumina next-generation sequencing platform gives LabCorp the flexibility to develop a wide range of molecular tests," Mark Brecher, LabCorp's chief medical officer, said in a statement. "The HLA typing assays we are developing on Illumina's family of NGS platforms will provide physicians with the ability to more accurately match bone marrow donors to recipients."
LabCorp CEO David King said at last week's JP Morgan Healthcare Conference that the firm is planning on expanding its portfolio of genomics-based diagnostics and will continue to advance NGS-based diagnostics in 2014.
The deal with LabCorp is the second this month between Illumina and one of the big clinical lab firms. Earlier in January it announced a multi-year supply deal with Quest Diagnostics, providing that firm with NGS technologies for the development of molecular diagnostics. Quest inked a similar deal with Life Technologies that was announced the same day.