Agena Bioscience Launches New Panel for Detection and Discrimination of SARS-CoV-2 Variants of Concern

SAN DIEGO, March 1, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Agena Bioscience®, a global provider of low-cost, high-throughput molecular testing solutions, today announced the launch of the MassARRAY® SARS-CoV-2 Variant Panel (RUO) for the detection of key SARS-CoV-2 virus strains, including the UK (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.1.351), Brazil (P.1) and Denmark (Cluster 5) variants.

Clinical laboratories can process thousands of samples each day on a single MassARRAY instrument. This makes the new panel one of the highest throughput SARS-CoV-2 variant surveillance tests on the market, and at $25 per sample, a compelling alternative to more costly and complex sequencing technologies.

"Most surveillance methods rely on sequencing-based technologies, which have inherent limitations - cost, time-to-result, limit of detection, and high-complexity - that make them impractical for known variant screening," said Dr. Darryl Irwin, Vice President of Scientific Affairs. "A more effective approach is to divide testing between the MassARRAY System for monitoring existing, known variants and sequencing to discover new variants. This will allow for a more scalable and effective expansion of variant surveillance programs, while increasing the efficiency of sequencing-based new variant discovery."

Enhanced surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 variants is critical for the continued public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. These emerging variants may be associated with increased transmissibility, more severe disease, inability to be detected by specific viral diagnostic tests, decreased response to therapeutic agents, and evasion of natural or vaccine-induced immunity.

"Agena is proud to continue its support of public health and clinical laboratories in their fight against this pandemic," said Peter Dansky, CEO of Agena Bioscience. "The MassARRAY System is already being used daily to test tens of thousands of samples for COVID-19 under Emergency Use Authorization from the US FDA, and it is ideally suited to rapidly screen millions of COVID-positive samples for the known SARS-CoV-2 strains, at a low cost."

More information is available at www.agenabio.com.

With exception of the MassARRAY Dx and MassARRAY SARS-CoV-2 Panel, all other products are For Research Use Only. Not for use in diagnostic procedures.

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 clinical diagnostic and research fields such as infectious diseases, cancer profiling for solid tumors and liquid biopsies, inherited genetic disease testing, pharmacogenetics, agricultural genomics, and clinical research. Agena received Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) for its MassARRAY SARS-CoV-2 Panel in October 2020. For more information about Agena, visit www.agenabio.com.

SOURCE Agena Bioscience

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