Certificate confirms OGT as the world’s leading choice for large-scale outsourced microarray studies

Oxford, UK and Santa Clara, CA – 25 February 2010. Following almost two years as an Agilent microarray Certified Service Provider, Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) and Agilent Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: A), today announced that OGT is the first company to be named as a High-Throughput Certified Service Provider (HT CSP) for Agilent microarrays. This new level of the Agilent
certification provides official validation of OGT’s use of Agilent microarrays in a high-throughput environment and reflects OGT’s status as the supplier of choice for large-scale outsourced
microarray studies.

The certificate has been awarded following rigorous assessment of the high-quality experimental data routinely generated by OGT’s unique high-throughput analysis service – Genefficiency™.
OGT’s facility recently completed a 22,000 sample, array comparative genomic hybridisation (aCGH) copy number variation (CNV) study for the Wellcome Trust Case Control Consortium. This was the largest ever CNV study to date, generating almost 2 billion data points to exacting quality requirements, in a short timeframe of only 20 weeks. [1]

The HT CSP Certificate was warmly welcomed by OGT’s CEO, Mike Evans: “This certification is a significant endorsement of OGT capabilities. Importantly, this endorsement is also reflected in our customer recommendations; around 65% of our business comes from word-of-mouth, with close to a 100% referral rate from new and existing customers. And we’re not standing still, as we have made significant investments in personnel, equipment and facilities to maintain our position as the worldwide leader in high quality, high-throughput microarray analysis.”

Chris Grimley, Senior Marketing Director of Agilent Technologies Genomics business said: “Agilent is pleased to offer OGT our first certification for High-Throughput Service Provider. OGT has been very successful integrating Agilent Automation Solution instrumentation and Agilent microarrays for an efficient laboratory workflow. We are confident that customers will benefit from the combination of Agilent products and OGT high-throughput service.”

OGT’s experience, particularly in the development of customised arrays, combined with Agilent’s microarray platform, provides customers with a comprehensive and flexible service using high density, high sensitivity microarrays, for all key applications.

References:

[1] Conrad, D.F., et al. Origins and functional impact of copy number variation in the human genome. Nature 2009 Oct 7 [Epub ahead of print].

For further information, please contact:
Oxford Gene Technology, Begbroke Science Park,
Sandy Lane, Yarnton, Oxford OX5 1PF
T: +44 (0) 1865 856826 ; F: +44 (0) 1865 848684 ; E: products@ogt.co.uk
W: www.ogt.co.uk

About Oxford Gene Technology:
Founded by Professor Ed Southern, Oxford Gene Technology (OGT) provides innovative clinical genetics and diagnostic solutions to advance molecular medicine. www.ogt.co.uk.

Clinical & Genomic Solutions: OGT’s Genefficiency™ is a unique combination of world-leading platforms, people, processing power and performance synchronised to deliver rapid, high quality genomic data to customers worldwide. The OGT CytoSure™ cytogenetics array, labelling and interpretation software products provide a complete solution for the detection of chromosomal abnormalities. Together, Genefficiency and CytoSure offer a unique, standardised and integrated solution for cytogenetics research.

Biomarker Discovery: OGT has a proven pedigree in genomic technology, which, together with the experience gained through the purchase of Sense Proteomics in 2009, enables OGT to develop highly specific customised genomic and proteomic biomarker panels for cancer and other diseases. OGT develops these for clinical screening and companion diagnostics requirements, both for direct sale and also for collaboration with partner companies.