QIAGEN and Zeptosens Announce Strategic Alliance on Innovative Nucleic Acid Microarray Detection Technology
The alliance intends to build on the powerful combination of Zeptosens' proprietary and innovative planar waveguide (PWG) platform detection technology, Zeptosens' surface chemistry and assay architecture know-how and QIAGEN's proprietary instrumentation and consumable technologies for nucleic acid handling, purification and preparation. The strength of PWG technology is that it allows significant increases in detection sensitivity thus expanding the potential of microarrays.
In early 1999, QIAGEN contributed as a founding investor to Zeptosens' initial financing and today holds a significant minority position in Zeptosens' equity capital. In addition to the equity contribution, QIAGEN has agreed to fund certain product development relating to nucleic acid detection and analysis to which QIAGEN has received exclusive commercialization rights. QIAGEN expects to commercialize products based on these unique technologies to academic, clinical and industrial research markets. The parties are targeting introduction of their first product based on this alliance which will include instrumentation and consumables in the year 2001.
"This alliance", said Metin Colpan, President and Chief Executive Officer of QIAGEN, "is a further milestone in our strategy to combine and leverage our strength in nucleic acid purification and handling with a leading, highly proprietary and what we believe to be exceptionally powerful nucleic acid analysis technology platform. This alliance adds a further and potentially very strong strategic position to QIAGEN's Genomics Business Unit."
"We are extremely pleased to establish this strategic collaboration with QIAGEN, the leading company in the area of nucleic acid purification and sample handling", said Markus Ehrat, Chief Executive Officer of Zeptosens. "The synergies created by this alliance will enable us to develop comprehensive and extremely sensitive analysis systems incorporating our proprietary technologies and QIAGEN's nucleic acid preparation and handling strength. In addition, QIAGEN's powerful sales and marketing resources can provide the optimal support to the benefit of customers entering into the next generation of performance in bioanalyis with products based on this alliance."
Zeptosens AG is an independent company based in Witterswil, near Basel, Switzerland. The Company is focused on developing and commercializing bioanalytical technologies for use in life sciences as well as in food and environmental analysis. Zeptosens was founded by a leading team of experts in pharmaceutical life science analytics from Novartis Pharma AG and initiated operations in spring 1999. While at Novartis and previously at Ciba-Geigy AG, the founding team led a significant development effort which resulted in the invention of this planar waveguide detection technology. Zeptosens subsequently acquired from Novartis Pharma AG exclusive worldwide rights to the proprietary planar waveguide technology for all applications (including applications in genomics) except for use for the diagnosis of human and veterinary health, for which Bayer Corp., Business Group Diagnostics was granted exclusive rights. In addition, Zeptosens has acquired intellectual property rights outside the planar waveguide technology from Novartis Pharma AG and certain academic research institutes. The company is aggressively patenting its own R&D results and constantly seeking to further broaden its analytical technology platforms.
Zeptosens AG has established collaborations with several leading academic research teams in order to rapidly expand its technology base and is open for additional partnerships in other high sensitivity bioassays and technologies.
<%=company%>, a Netherlands holding company with subsidiaries in Germany, the United States, Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, France, Australia and Canada, believes it is the world's leading provider of innovative enabling technologies and products for the separation, purification and handling of nucleic acids. The company has developed a comprehensive portfolio of more than 280 proprietary, consumable products for nucleic acid separation, purification and handling, nucleic acid amplification, as well as automated instrumentation and related services. QIAGEN's products are sold in more than 42 countries throughout the world to academic research markets and to leading pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. In addition, the company is positioning its products for sale into developing commercial markets, including DNA sequencing and genomics, nucleic acid-based molecular diagnostics, and genetic vaccination and gene therapy.