Neogen signs commercialization agreement with Illumina

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Jul 07, 2015, 08:45 ET

LANSING, Mich., July 7, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Neogen Corporation (NASDAQ: NEOG) announced today that it has signed an agreement to expand its relationship with Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN), the global leader in sequencing and genomics. Under the agreement, Illumina will market and sell arrays with Neogen's custom SNP content, built on Illumina Infinium^® BeadArray technology, to the global agrigenomics community.

Neogen is one of Illumina's largest agrigenomic customers through its GeneSeek^® genomics laboratory in Lincoln, Neb. GeneSeek provides SNP genotyping and next generation sequencing services for cattle, pigs, horses, and other animal and plant species.

"This agreement is an extension of our strategic relationship with Illumina that has existed since 2008," said Dr. Jason Lilly, Neogen's vice president of corporate development. "While our own agrigenomics business has expanded more than 30% per year, including significant international growth, we recognize that our ability to consolidate novel genomic content and offer it through this arrangement will lead to faster world-wide genetic improvements for industry.

"This agreement will provide other laboratories an ability to run the same highly researched chips we use in our lab," Lilly continued. "These other laboratories will primarily be international genotyping service labs, which due to funding restrictions, export issues, or other reasons, are unable to ship samples to our facilities in Nebraska or Scotland, but still want to use the same improved arrays for their genomic improvement needs."

The agreement will allow laboratories to purchase the GeneSeek Genomic Profiler™ (GGP) SNP arrays from Illumina. The highly informative GGP products screen animal DNA for gene-marker variations linked to important performance traits, and are available in both high and low density options. The initial products to be offered include Neogen's industry-leading bovine, porcine, and equine genomic profiling products.

Neogen's GeneSeek laboratory was one of Illumina's first Certified Service Providers (CSPro^®). The CSPro program is a collaborative service partnership between Illumina and its customers dedicated to ensuring the delivery of the highest-quality data available for genetic analysis applications.

Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Neogen Corporation develops and markets products dedicated to food and animal safety. The company's Food Safety Division markets dehydrated culture media, and diagnostic test kits to detect foodborne bacteria, natural toxins, food allergens, drug residues, plant diseases and sanitation concerns. Neogen's Animal Safety Division is a leader in the development of animal genomics along with the manufacturing and distribution of a variety of animal healthcare products, including diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, veterinary instruments, wound care and disinfectants.