Agena Bioscience to provide Horizon’s human genomic reference standards to assess quality and performance of oncology-based assays on the MassARRAY System

Agena Bioscience (“Agena”) and Horizon Discovery Group plc (LSE: HZD) ("Horizon") today announced a Supply and Distribution agreement to launch iPLEX^® reference standards for performance verification of oncology assays used on the MassARRAY^® System.

Under the partnership, Agena Bioscience will offer multiplexed sets of iPLEX-branded reference standards containing somatic variants in key oncogenic genes implicated in colon, lung, and skin cancers. These standards will be made from cell lines precisely engineered using Horizon’s proprietary genome engineering platform, and will be provided at fixed and known allelic frequencies, thereby mimicking real patient tumors.

The MassARRAY System enables rapid assay development for targeted and highly sensitive mutation analysis. Tens to hundreds of actionable genetic variants are easily tested. However, robust assay performance requires upfront analytical verification and validation. These standards, available through Agena Bioscience, will be a valuable resource for laboratories to speed analytical validation and serve as ongoing positive controls, complementing laboratories’ evaluation of clinical research specimens.

“We are committed to accelerating the development and deployment of clinical research tests on the MassARRAY System,” commented Pete Dansky, CEO of Agena Bioscience. “This development of standards for Agena Bioscience by Horizon will provide a cost-effective, optimized resource for efficient test deployment.”

Dr. Paul Morrill, President, Products, Horizon Discovery Group commented: “Horizon’s Reference Standards continue to gain traction in an ever wider range of applications and are increasingly used to harmonize results across platforms. We are therefore pleased that Agena chose to work with Horizon to support high quality assay validation in a clinical research setting for this, our first commercial agreement for use on a mass spectrometry platform.”

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