- The collaboration follows QIAGEN’s integration with BIOBASE earlier this year
- BGI Tech will provide services to the Greater China market with the widely used HGMD literature source
- The collaboration is QIAGEN’s next step forward in expanding in emerging markets
Shenzhen, China and Wolfenbuettel, Germany – QIAGEN N.V. (NASDAQ: QGEN; Frankfurt Prime Standard: QIA) and BGI Tech Solutions Co., Ltd. (BGI Tech), a subsidiary of BGI, the world’s largest genomics organization, today announced that they have entered into a distribution and service agreement for the Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD®) in Greater China. Under the agreement, BGI Tech will serve the Chinese market including providing first level support for the database.
HGMD is a unique resource providing comprehensive data on human inherited disease mutations for genetics and genomic research. It enables quick access to both single mutation queries and advanced search applications. Offered by BIOBASE, a QIAGEN company, HGMD is assembled by highly qualified subject-matter experts and organized in an accessible and easily searchable manner that enables scientists and clinical labs to identify connections between disparate pieces of information and apply that knowledge. It is widely used in human genetics research, diagnostics, and personal genomics applications and was an essential tool in analyzing the genomes assembled by the 1000 Genomes Project. Earlier this year, QIAGEN announced the expansion of its industry-leading portfolio of bioinformatics solutions with additional content from BIOBASE. Expert-curated hereditary variants from HGMD are now available to customers using QIAGEN’s Ingenuity Variant Analysis.
And with this agreement, diagnostics labs, hospitals, pharmaceutical corporates, research and academic institutions in Greater China can benefit from the unique resource of HGMD through the services provided by BGI Tech.
“Known for their outstanding contributions to science, BGI is committed to excellence in everything they do, and want only the best-in-class solutions for their customers. Assessing mutations is an important need for many of their customers, so it is logical for them to represent HGMD. New and existing HGMD customers in Greater China will benefit from local support and from a distributor with deep subject-matter expertise.” said Frank Schacherer, CTO of BIOBASE.
“This is a win-win collaboration for both of us. BGI Tech dedicates to accelerating scientific progresses in biomedicine, agriculture, and environment. Collaborating with QIAGEN can enrich our scientific strengths in the fields of human genetics and complex diseases, and enable us to provide better services for our global collaborators.” said Yingrui Li, CEO of BGI Tech.
About BGI Tech
BGI Tech, established in 2012, is a subsidiary of BGI, the world’s largest genomics research institute. By providing superior scientific and technological services, BGI Tech aims to be the Premier Scientific Partner to researchers around the world. They provide One Stop and Total Solution services for its global biomedical, agricultural, and environmental customers. To date, BGI Tech has provided premier services to more than 10,000 research institutes and 30,000 scientific partners.
Further information can be found at http://bgitechsolutions.com.
About QIAGEN
QIAGEN N.V., a Netherlands-based holding company, is the leading global provider of Sample & Assay Technologies that are used to transform biological materials into valuable molecular information. Sample technologies are used to isolate and process DNA, RNA and proteins from biological samples such as blood or tissue. Assay technologies are then used to make these isolated biomolecules visible and ready for interpretation. QIAGEN markets more than 500 products around the world, selling both consumable kits and automation systems to customers through four customer classes: Molecular Diagnostics (human healthcare), Applied Testing (forensics, veterinary testing and food safety), Pharma (pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies) and Academia (life sciences research). As of March 31, 2014, QIAGEN employed approximately 4,000 people in over 35 locations worldwide.
Further information can be found at http://www.qiagen.com.
For more information about HGMD, please visit: http://www.biobase-international.com/product/hgmd
