Biomerieux to launch its first product, powered by Affymetrix technology, for food and animal feed testing in the fourth quarter of 2003.
Affymetrix and Biomerieux say that the collaboration agreements between the companies have been expanded to enable the development of a broad spectrum of tests in infectious disease and industrial testing using Affymetrix GeneChip probe arrays. Biomerieux will launch its first product resulting from the collaboration with Affymetrix in the fourth quarter of 2003.
This product will be used to verify the authenticity and origin of food and animal feed.
Biomerieux will have non-exclusive access to Affymetrix technology for the determination of virulence factors, bacterial strain typing, and sepsis diagnosis, including host pathogens response to infections.
Biomerieux has added rights in fields outside bacteriology to develop new assays for hepatitis B virus, respiratory and central nervous system infectious panels.
Biomerieux plans to commercialise products, powered by Affymetrix technology, with a new instrument and software platform developed by Biomerieux.
Affymetrix will receive upfront and milestone payments and receive royalties for all collaborative products that are developed and commercialised by Biomerieux.
"Biomerieux's launch of the FoodExpert-ID product marks the introduction of microarray products for industrial applications," said Robert Lipshutz, senior vice president of corporate development at Affymetrix. "Affymetrix technology provides a proven, standardised platform for analysing complex genetic information in a wide variety of applications and markets.
"The collaboration with Affymetrix is highly important in this field and demonstrates our determination to remain a major player within in vitro diagnostics and especially in molecular biology," added Christophe Merieux, vice president and director of medical affairs and research at Biomerieux.
"Access to Affymetrix's GeneChip platform will allow us to introduce novel diagnostic tests into clinical routine while benefiting from Affymetrix's groundbreaking technology and industrial scale manufacturing capabilities."
