Roche and Fluidigm to co-promote complementary systems

Roche has announced that it will be collaborating with Fluidigm Corporation on the co-promotion of their complementary laboratory technology offerings.

Under the terms of the worldwide agreement, Roche's 454 Life Sciences division will work with Fluidigm to promote the advantages of using Fluidigm's Access Array System together with 454's GS Junior or GS FLX System.

According to the manufacturers, this combination of amplicon sample preparation and high-throughput sequencing platforms will provide streamlined workflows and reductions in the number of necessary manual steps.

The technology is optimised for use in applications such as genotyping and rare disease variant detection.

Christopher McLeod, president and chief executive officer of 454 Life Sciences, said the systems are "extremely complementary, allowing analysis of large numbers of sample/amplicon combinations in an affordable workflow, without the need for complicated liquid handling".

Earlier this month, Roche published its financial report for the first nine months of 2010, reporting a two per cent growth in year-on-year sales.