Oligo synthesis falls in price
Illumina, from San Diego, CA, has made significant enhancements to its Oligator oligo synthesis technology. The company claims the resulting improvement increases operational efficiency and capacity.
Illumina, from San Diego, CA, has made significant enhancements to its Oligator oligo synthesis technology. The company claims the resulting improvement increases operational efficiency and capacity.
As a result, the introduction of a new, volume-based pricing program will again reduce the cost of oligonucleotide-based genetic analysis for the life science community. In 2002, Illumina began offering $0.16 per-base pricing which dramatically reduced researchers' costs. The new pricing schedule will allow researchers and institutions consuming large volumes of oligonucleotides to purchase oligos in plates for as low as $0.11 a base.
Illumina's proprietary Oligator synthesis technology is optimised for the production of plate-scale quantities of oligos for use in genotyping, sequencing, gene expression analysis, PCR, and other high-throughput research applications. Individual Oligator synthesisers are capable of producing greater than 3,000 oligos at a time in Illumina's highly integrated, automated, and LIMS-controlled manufacturing environment.
In addition to serving the plate-based oligo market, Oligator oligo production supports the Company's SNP genotyping and gene expression offerings, both of which demand high-quality oligos.
Tom Rosso, product line manager, commented: 'Our Oligator DNA synthesis operation continues to deliver high quality and superior value to life scientists and organisations looking to lower the cost of large-scale genomics research. We're very pleased with the progress our manufacturing team has made in leveraging the Oligator platform and with the additional benefits we can now pass along to our growing, global customer base.'
Illumina is developing next-generation tools that permit large-scale analysis of genetic variation and function. The company's proprietary BeadArray technology provides the throughput, cost effectiveness and flexibility to enable researchers in the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries to perform the billions of tests necessary to extract medically valuable information from advances in genomics and proteomics. This information will help pave the way to personalised medicine.