LANSING, Mich., July 7, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Neogen
Corporation (NASDAQ: NEOG) announced today that it has signed an
agreement to expand its relationship with Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN),
the global leader in sequencing and genomics. Under the agreement,
Illumina will market and sell arrays with Neogen's custom SNP
content, built on Illumina Infinium® BeadArray
technology, to the global agrigenomics community.
Neogen is one of Illumina's largest agrigenomic customers
through its GeneSeek® genomics laboratory in
Lincoln, Neb. GeneSeek provides
SNP genotyping and next generation sequencing services for cattle,
pigs, horses, and other animal and plant species.
"This agreement is an extension of our strategic relationship
with Illumina that has existed since 2008," said Dr. Jason Lilly, Neogen's vice president of
corporate development. "While our own agrigenomics business has
expanded more than 30% per year, including significant
international growth, we recognize that our ability to consolidate
novel genomic content and offer it through this arrangement will
lead to faster world-wide genetic improvements for industry.
"This agreement will provide other laboratories an ability to
run the same highly researched chips we use in our lab," Lilly
continued. "These other laboratories will primarily be
international genotyping service labs, which due to funding
restrictions, export issues, or other reasons, are unable to ship
samples to our facilities in Nebraska or Scotland, but still want to use the same
improved arrays for their genomic improvement needs."
The agreement will allow laboratories to purchase the GeneSeek
Genomic Profiler™ (GGP) SNP arrays from Illumina. The highly
informative GGP products screen animal DNA for gene-marker
variations linked to important performance traits, and are
available in both high and low density options. The initial
products to be offered include Neogen's industry-leading bovine,
porcine, and equine genomic profiling products.
Neogen's GeneSeek laboratory was one of Illumina's first
Certified Service Providers (CSPro®). The CSPro program
is a collaborative service partnership between Illumina and its
customers dedicated to ensuring the delivery of the highest-quality
data available for genetic analysis applications.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Neogen Corporation develops and markets products dedicated to
food and animal safety. The company's Food Safety Division markets
dehydrated culture media, and diagnostic test kits to detect
foodborne bacteria, natural toxins, food allergens, drug residues,
plant diseases and sanitation concerns. Neogen's Animal Safety
Division is a leader in the development of animal genomics along
with the manufacturing and distribution of a variety of animal
healthcare products, including diagnostics, pharmaceuticals,
veterinary instruments, wound care and disinfectants.
CONTACT:
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Dr. Jason Lilly,
Neogen Corporation
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517/372-9200
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SOURCE Neogen Corporation