Agilent and SomaLogic agree proteomic technology alliance

Agilent Technologies has entered into a new technology alliance with the privately held biotechnology firm SomaLogic.

The collaboration will focus on expanding access to SomaLogic's unbiased protein biomarker discovery platform and will initially place the SOMAscan proteomic assay – which employs custom Agilent microarrays in its workflow – in select academic and contract research centres.

This will help to meet rapidly growing demand for access to the company's highly multiplexed cost-effective proteomic analyses, with financial terms of the agreement remaining undisclosed.

Currently, the SOMAscan assay is available to researchers directly from SomaLogic as a service.

Jacob Thaysen, vice-president and general manager of Agilent's genomics solutions division, said: "This agreement will greatly enhance our current microarray offerings by expanding them into the rapidly growing proteomics market."

This comes after the firm agreed a new chromatography technology alliance with fellow life science company Shimadzu earlier this year, which saw them exchanging RapidControl.Net instrument drivers to increase compatibility between their products.