BioDiscovery signs OEM Agreement with Exiqon

BioDiscovery, Inc., a leader in integrated software solutions for microarray-based research, and Exiqon A/S, a leader in microRNA analysis products and services, announced today an OEM Agreement incorporating BioDiscovery's array analysis and visualization software with Exiqon's arrays. The agreement allows Exiqon to package BioDiscovery's array image analysis and data analysis and visualization software with Exiqon's microRNA arrays for a complete solution offering.

"The partnership between BioDiscovery and Exiqon provides a complete well integrated solution for microRNA array studies, going from array experiment with Exiqon's miRCURY LNA(TM) microRNA Arrays to final results with data analysis and visualization from BioDiscovery software," said Soheil Shams, President of BioDiscovery. "Now, regardless of the scanning equipment the customer is using, our ImaGene software will allow efficient and accurate quantification of the signals and our Nexus Expression for ImaGene software will provide pre-processing and statistical analysis to identify differentially expressed microRNAs and perform clustering analysis."

"The integration of ImaGene 9 and Nexus Expression 2 with the miRCURY LNA(TM) microRNA Arrays from Exiqon results in the most optimized and simplified workflow available today," said Henrik M. Pfundheller, VP Sales & Marketing of Exiqon. "We can now provide researchers with the best performing microRNA arrays on the market together with all other needed reagents, kits and software analysis tools enabling researchers to get from RNA extraction, labeling of samples, array hybridization, and further on to data analysis and bioinformatics in an easy, fast and accurate way. As we also offer solutions for downstream validation of array results including our LNA(TM) Universal RT microRNA PCR product, customers can get a complete package for their microRNA research at Exiqon."

BioDiscovery's software is platform independent and available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows operating systems. ImaGene is recognized by industry experts as the most complete solution for array image analysis with the highest quality results and the easiest to use microarray analysis user interface. With single click automation, integrated advanced quality control parameters, numerous patented segmentation and contamination removal algorithms, and hundreds of active customers worldwide, ImaGene remains the leader in microarray image analysis. Nexus Expression for ImaGene is a complete analysis package allowing up to 24 samples to be simultaneously analyzed and visualized to identify differentially regulated probes, cluster samples and probes and identify common biological themes through gene set enrichment. With an intuitive interface and rich graphical and numerical outputs that are publication ready, Nexus Expression for ImaGene is an ideal product for those performing gene or microRNA expression analysis.

Exiqon's miRCURY LNA(TM) microRNA Array system is a complete system for global microRNA expression profiling. Featuring validated and Tm-normalized LNA(TM)-based capture probes, the miRCURY LNA(TM) microRNA arrays offer microRNA expression profiling with unmatched specificity and sensitivity. With the recent launch of our 5th generation array Exiqon now offers the most updated content on the market with the array containing probes targeting more than 2520 human, mouse and rat microRNAs as well as viral microRNAs and 385 new proprietary human miRPlus(TM) sequences. Exiqon also offers products for downstream validation of arrays results including the miRCURY LNA(TM) Universal RT microRNA PCR for validation by qPCR and miRCURY LNA(TM) microRNA Detection probes for validation by in-situ hybridization.