Agilent Technologies Inc. and Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) announced they have expanded an existing partnership into an exclusive agreement for Agilent to provide OGT with oligonucleotide microarrays and SureSelect target enrichment products for next-generation sequencing.

Mike Evans, chief executive of OGT, said: “We are delighted to have been able to broaden our supply partnership with Agilent to include the industry-leading SureSelect platform for our recently launched Genefficiency next-generation sequencing service. We are also pleased to extend our OEM supply agreement for oligonucleotide microarrays, building on the success of our comprehensive CytoSure product range for cytogenetics.”

“Agilent and OGT have a very close working relationship and we are excited to expand our collaboration to the SureSelect platform under our Certified Services Provider programme,” said Robert Schueren, vice president and general manager of Agilent's genomics business. “OGT's bioinformatics capabilities add significant value to customers targeting specific areas of the genome with our SureSelect product line.”

SureSelect target enrichment has enabled researchers to identify mutations associated with more than 50 Mendelian diseases, 10 different types of cancer, and other complex ailments such as schizophrenia and Parkinson's disease. The SureSelect platform offers the most complete offering of catalogue and custom capture kits (including comprehensive exome kits for human, mouse, and other model organisms, and flexible custom DNA or RNA target enrichment solutions) on all major next-generation sequencing platforms.

The initial agreement, announced in 2007, gave OGT access to Agilent's microarray platform and appointed it an Agilent Certified Service Provider for microarrays. In 2010, following the successful completion of the world's largest copy number variation study, OGT was the first company to be awarded Agilent High-Throughput Microarray Certified Service Provider status.

The Agilent SureSelect Target Enrichment System is an in-solution hybridization capture technology first developed in collaboration with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, and subsequently published in Nature Biotechnology.

The technology streamlines next-generation sequencing by helping to enable researchers to sequence only genomic regions of interest. One hundred twenty-mer RNA oligos provide reliable capture of more small and large variants, including SNPs, CNVs and Indels with unsurpassed allelic balance.

SureSelect XT offers a complete target enrichment workflow, including the SureSelect Target Enrichment Kit, gDNA prep kit and library prep kit. Automation-friendly reagents are also available for studies at any scale.

The SureSelect platform for target enrichment has led to the greatest number of peer-reviewed discovery publications with more than 125 to date.

Oxford Gene Technology is focused on providing innovative solutions to advance molecular medicine. OGT's exceptional range of products, services and intellectual property has driven significant and sustained growth, with customers in more than 30 countries worldwide

Agilent Technologies Inc. is the world's premier measurement company and a technology leader in chemical analysis, life sciences, electronics and communications.