SAN DIEGO, Jan 07, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) announced today the next-generation High-Density Bovine BeadChip (BovineHD) array product using its Infinium(R) HD assay. The chip contains data from more than 20 diverse breeds that was generated from recent sequencing largely done with Illumina Genome AnalyzerIIx technology. The BovineHD BeadChip will interrogate more than 500,000 loci, representing over ten times more genetic markers than the company's industry-leading BovineSNP50 BeadChip.
"We're excited about this collaboration and the research potential for our new BovineHD product, which broadens the company's leadership in the high-complexity agriculture research market," said Jay Flatley, president and chief executive officer of Illumina. "While the BovineSNP50 will continue to be the industry's premier genetic screening panel, the addition of the BovineHD to Illumina's product portfolio will serve as a powerful research tool for enabling more discoveries of quantitative traits and expanding the diversity of bovine breeds assessed in genetic prediction."
The product is the result of an international collaboration involving Illumina and a number of leading agricultural research organizations, including the U.S. Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS), Pfizer Animal Genetics, the University of Missouri, the National Association of Livestock and Artificial Insemination Cooperatives in France (UNCEIA), and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). The team performing the SNP discovery and selection was led by Dr. Curt Van Tassell, research geneticist at USDA-ARS.
"Our collaboration with Illumina to develop this high-density chip supports our desire to develop strategic partnerships that harness the power of genomic innovation for the benefit of the bovine research community and for our cattle producer customers," said Nigel Evans, vice president of Pfizer Animal Genetics.
In a joint statement, Maurice Barbezant, director of the UNCEIA in France, and Didier Boichard, chief of Animal Genetics at INRA, said: "The new BovineHD will be an important additional whole-genome research array to complement the current genomic tools available for the identification of agriculturally important genes and for a deeper implementation of genomic selection in cattle. In genomic selection, it will prove especially useful for between-breed analyses and in populations for which the size of a reference population is currently limited."
The BovineHD BeadChip is available now for advance orders, with initial shipments to collaborators beginning at the end of the first quarter of 2010. Broad commercial shipments are expected to begin in the second quarter of 2010.
For more information on the Illumina's agricultural initiatives please visit our website at http://www.illumina.com/agriculture.
About Illumina
Illumina (www.illumina.com) is a leading developer, manufacturer, and marketer of next-generation life-science tools and integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and biological function. Using our proprietary technologies, we provide a comprehensive line of products and services that currently serve the sequencing, genotyping, and gene expression markets, and we expect to enter the market for molecular diagnostics. Our customers include leading genomic research centers, pharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, clinical research organizations, and biotechnology companies. Our tools provide researchers around the world with the performance, throughput, cost effectiveness, and flexibility necessary to perform the billions of genetic tests needed to extract valuable medical information from advances in genomics and proteomics. We believe this information will enable researchers to correlate genetic variation and biological function, which will enhance drug discovery and clinical research, allow diseases to be detected earlier, and permit better choices of drugs for individual patients.
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This release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those in any forward-looking statements are detailed in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our recent filings on Forms 10-K and 10-Q or in information disclosed in public conference calls, the date and time of which are released beforehand. We disclaim any obligation to and do not intend to update any forward-looking statements after the date of this release.
SOURCE: Illumina, Inc.
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