Agena Bioscience and Horizon Discovery to Launch iPLEX® Reference Standards for the MassARRAY® System

SAN DIEGO and CAMBRIDGE, United Kingdom, April 14, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Agena Bioscience ("Agena") and Horizon Discovery Group plc ("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."

About Agena Bioscience
Agena Bioscience develops, manufactures, and supplies genetic analysis systems and reagents, including the MassARRAY^® System. The system is a highly sensitive, cost-effective, mass spectrometry-based platform for high-throughput genetic analysis, and is used globally in diverse research fields such as cancer profiling for solid tumors and liquid biopsies, inherited genetic disease testing, pharmacogenetics, agricultural genomics, and clinical research. The MassARRAY System is intended for research use only, and not intended for use in diagnostic procedures. www.agenabioscience.com

About Horizon Discovery Group plc www.horizondiscovery.com
Horizon Discovery Group plc ("Horizon"), is a world-leading gene editing company that designs and engineers genetically-modified cells and then applies them in research and clinical applications that advance human health.

Horizon's core capabilities are built around its proprietary translational genomics platform, a highly precise and flexible suite of gene editing tools (rAAV, ZFN and CRISPR) able to alter almost any gene sequence in human or mammalian cell-lines.

Horizon offers over 23,000 catalog products and related research services, almost all of which are based on the generation and application of cell and animal models that accurately recapitulate the disease-causing genetic anomalies found in diseases like cancer. Horizon's commercial offering has been adopted by c1,400 unique research organizations in over 50 countries as well as in the Company's own R&D pipeline to support a greater understanding of the genetic drivers of disease and the development of molecular, cell and gene therapies that can be prescribed on a personalized basis.

Horizon is headquartered in Cambridge, UK.

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SOURCE Agena Bioscience

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