Genomics firms Neogen, Illumina expand marketing endeavors

Neogen Corp. said on Friday that it is expanding its relationship with sequencing and genomics company Illumina.

Under the deal, Illumina will market and sell arrays with Neogen's custom SNP content, which contains Illumina's Infinium BeadArray technology. The agreement also lets Illumina sell GeneSeek Genomic Profiler (GGP) SNP arrays to laboratories. The GGP technology is used to screen animal DNA for traits linked to performance. Neogen is one of Illumina's largest agrigenomic customers.

"This agreement is an extension of our strategic relationship with Illumina that has existed since 2008," Jason Lilly, Neogen's vice president of corporate development, said. "While our own agrigenomics business has expanded more than 30 percent 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 worldwide 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 said. "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."

Illumina offers genetic sequencing services for a number of plant and animal species, including cattle, pigs and horses.

For more information, visit www.neogen.com.