Agilent Technologies Inc. Introduces Two Innovative Products To Advance Clinical Cancer Research

HaloPlex^HS Target Enrichment System and ClearSeq Comprehensive Cancer Research Panel Improve Speed and Accuracy of Variant Detection

SANTA CLARA, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A) today launched two new products—the HaloPlex^HS target enrichment system and ClearSeq Comprehensive Cancer research panel—designed to improve the speed and accuracy of clinical cancer research.

“Cancer is a complex disease caused by genetic alterations in multiple genes, many of which are present at very low frequency”

Both products will enable researchers to rapidly and accurately identify disease-associated variants in tumor samples—information that can be vital to research in cancer treatments.

The company is showcasing its new products at the annual Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) conference in Marco Island, Florida, this week.

HaloPlex^HS Target Enrichment System

HaloPlex^HS is a high-sensitivity amplicon-based targeted sequencing method based on Agilent’s innovative HaloPlex technology. This new method enables clinical researchers to meet one of their most daunting challenges: accurately identifying low-frequency somatic variants in solid tumors and hematological cancers.

One of the first commercially available high-sensitivity target-enrichment technologies for next-generation sequencing, HaloPlex^HS incorporates more than 1 million unique molecular barcodes for accurate detection of alleles at low frequencies. The molecular barcodes are especially important for cancer researchers who work with heterogeneous samples in which driver mutations can be present in subclonal cell populations.

“We needed a highly sensitive, specific and rapid method for detection of mutations below 1 percent for tumor burden monitoring,” said Dr. Eric Duncavage, director of molecular pathology training at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. “HaloPlex^HS proved to be the ideal product for this research application. I expect HaloPlex^HS to be the new clinical research standard for accurate low-frequency variant identification.”

ClearSeq Comprehensive Cancer Panels

ClearSeq, an off-the-shelf cancer research panel developed in collaboration with researchers at Washington University, provides an accelerated solution for the analysis of many oncogenes and tumor suppressors. This panel is the latest addition to Agilent’s growing portfolio of ClearSeq cancer research panels and targets 151 key oncology genes containing disease-associated variants.

Designed with the clinical researcher in mind, the new panel allows clinical researchers to rapidly profile multiple mutations present in cancer samples.

“Cancer is a complex disease caused by genetic alterations in multiple genes, many of which are present at very low frequency,” said Jacob Thaysen, president of Agilent’s Diagnostics and Genomics group. “These latest additions to Agilent’s portfolio of sequencing solutions provide innovative methods to enable the identification of important variants with greater accuracy than what is available today. Together with industry-leading cancer diagnostic tools from our Dako portfolio, Agilent offers a unique set of solutions that provide a more comprehensive view of cancer, from discovery research through diagnostics.”

About Agilent Technologies

Agilent Technologies Inc. (NYSE:A), a global leader in life sciences, diagnostics and applied chemical markets, is the premier laboratory partner for a better world. Agilent works with customers in more than 100 countries, providing instruments, software, services and consumables for the entire laboratory workflow. Agilent generated revenues of $4.0 billion in fiscal 2014. The company employs about 12,000 people worldwide. Information about Agilent is available at www.agilent.com.

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