NEW YORK – BGI affiliate MGI Tech said on Wednesday that it has reached a court-approved agreement with Illumina in its patent lawsuit in the UK, enabling the company to make its HotMPS sequencing chemistry and instruments commercially available in the UK as of July 6.
According to the Shenzhen, China-based sequencing tech company, the sealed consent order pertains to the ongoing patent lawsuit between MGI and Illumina in the UK and was approved by the High Court of Justice Business and Property Courts of England and Wales on June 23.
As a result of the consent order, MGI said it is now "free to begin to sell and supply HotMPS reagents and sequencers modified for use with HotMPS reagents exclusively in the UK." According to the company, the first instruments are being made available to selected labs in the UK, including one at Imperial College London.
However, MGI noted that the HotMPS sequencing chemistry, which the company launched in April and showcased at the European Society of Human Genetics annual meeting last month, can only be used with DNBSeq-G400RS and DNBSeq-G400 instruments whose software has been configured for HotMPS.
"DNBSeq-G400RS and DNBSeq-G400 whose software has been configured for HotMPS must be used in conjunction with MGI's HotMPS sequencing reagents, and must not be used with MGI's CoolMPS or StandardMPS reagents (or with any reagents containing a 3'O-azidomethyl blocking group)," an MGI spokesperson wrote in an email.
"Use of MGI's CoolMPS or StandardMPS reagents (or with any reagents containing a 3'O-azidomethyl blocking group) with such sequencers will invalidate any warranty which may have been provided by MGI, and any liability for intellectual property infringement arising from the use of such reagents is excluded from any IP indemnity," the spokesperson said.
MGI has been offering the HotMPS chemistry and instruments in all but five European countries, which will now be joined by the UK. The company said it plans to launch other products in the UK, including library preparation kits to enable whole-genome, whole-exome, RNA, and metagenomic sequencing.
"We are very excited to extend our HotMPS sequencing offering to the UK market. Our established and proven DNBSeq technology offers a choice to the sequencing customers which we believe is essential to drive innovation. With our local UK team, we are ready to support customers immediately who have been waiting for this announcement," Yong Hou, president of MGI Europe and Africa, said in a statement.
Illumina did not respond to a request for comment.