Silicon Biosystems Menarini, Swift Biosciences Announce Collaboration and Co-Marketing Partnership to Unlock Genomic Information from FFPE Samples

ORLANDO, Fla., Feb. 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Silicon Biosystems Menarini Inc., a developer and manufac­turer of technologies and products that help uncover the biological complexities of disease at the single-cell level, and Swift Biosciences Inc., a developer of innovative technologies for genomics research, today announced a scientific collaboration and co-marketing partnership aimed at enabling translational researchers to obtain high-quality sequencing results from as few as a couple hundred tumor and normal cells in an optimized and seamless workflow.

Silicon Biosystems Menarini will develop new workflows focused on translational research that combines its DEPArray™ System with Swift Biosciences' Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology. The announcement was made at the annual Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) meeting held in Orlando, February 10^th-13^th. Both companies will present recent findings of their collaborative research on February 13^th.

Tim Harkins, CEO of Swift Biosciences, explained how the combination of the two technologies enables oncology researchers to fully access genomic information locked within formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue samples. "Working with Silicon Biosystems Menarini has revolutionized the analysis of FFPE samples by enabling researchers to perform whole genome, exome and targeted resequencing from samples that previously could not be sequenced. There is a treasure trove of genetic information in countless FFPE collections that can now be unlocked with the combination of these technologies. It is a very exciting time for the oncology community."

Giuseppe Giorgini, CEO of Silicon Biosystems Menarini added, "Offering our DEPArray system owners the simple and optimized sequencing solution that Swift Biosciences provides will guarantee them reliable and high-quality results that translational research requires."

Combining the Power of Precise Single-Cell Isolation with NGS
The DEPArray system is capable of isolating a few hundred matched tumor and normal cells from FFPE materials, or from frozen tumor specimens, and cell cultures. Based on the principle of dielectrophoresis, which exploits the ability of a non-uniform electric field to move cells in a spatial gradient, the system provides precise image-based cell selection for identification and sorting of individual cells, or pools of cells, at 100% purity for further genetic analysis or culturing. With Swift Biosciences' Accel-NGS^® 2S DNA Library Kits researchers are able to build complex libraries from as little as 100 pg of DNA. The new Accel-NGS 2S Hyb DNA Library Kit will allow the sequencing of whole exomes from FFPE samples that contain low amounts of damaged and fragmented DNA. The DEPArray System and Accel-Amplicon™ panels have also been optimized together to deliver somatic mutation detection in 56 clinically relevant oncology-related genes.

About Swift Biosciences
Swift Biosciences Inc. is developing innovative and enabling technologies for genomics research. The company's Accel-NGS^® product portfolio brings unique capabilities to improve the efficiency and quality of NGS sample preparation across multiple applications. The Accel-NGS library preparation kits offer high-performance sequence coverage metrics, even from challenging samples, and can generate PCR-free libraries for whole genome sequencing from as little as 10 ng of genomic input. The company's Accel-Amplicon products encompass multiple panels that include a 56G Oncology Panel, a Sample_ID panel, and custom panels across multiple genomes. Swift Biosciences also offers kits for bisulfite-converted DNA for methylation sequencing and a product for single-stranded DNA that are ideal for viral and phage metagenomes. For more information, please visit www.swiftbiosci.com and follow Swift Biosci­ences on Twitter (@SwiftBioSci).

About Silicon Biosystems Menarini — The Single Cell-Precision Company
Silicon Biosystems Menarini Inc., based in San Diego, Calif. and Bologna, Italy, is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Menarini Group, a multinational pharmaceutical, biotechnology and diagnostics company headquartered in Florence, Italy. The company manufactures and sells the DEPArray system, which enables researchers to automatically identify, quantify, and recover individual rare cells with single-cell precision.

For more information visit http://www.siliconbiosystems.com.

SOURCE Silicon Biosystems Menarini Inc.

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