Industry News: Oxford Gene Technology Expands Next Generation Sequencing Portfolio

Oxford Gene Technology (OGT), the molecular genetics company, has announced the expansion of its portfolio of high-quality products for Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) with the addition of the SureSeq™ Ovarian Cancer Panel & SureSeq NGS Library Preparation Kit.

The new products are a result of significant recent investment of OGT’s R&D and commercial capabilities in the area, and will add to OGT’s existing range of NGS products, including the SureSeq Solid Tumour Panel, and the SureSeq Myeloid Panel, which was launched in June. OGT has worked closely with industry-leading experts to ensure the products have the most relevant and up-to-date content combined with simple and streamlined workflows.

Mike Evans, CEO of OGT commented, “NGS is a significant area of growth within the genomics industry and our strategic focus has been directed at driving forward new product development and sales. We have launched three new NGS products this year, and we are generating a strong pipeline of additional products in development.”

The SureSeq Ovarian Cancer Panel is a hybridisation-based enrichment panel which covers all coding exons of seven key genes of importance in ovarian cancer research; BRCA1, BRCA2, TP53, PTEN, ATM, ATR, and NF1. Although now well recognised as providing superior results over amplicon-based enrichment technology, hybridisation-based enrichment has traditionally required more DNA, and the library preparation protocol has been longer and more complex. These issues are overcome with the SureSeq NGS Library Preparation Kit, which streamlines the NGS sample prep workflow to reduce hands-on steps and turnaround times.

The panel allows the detection of germline mutations in DNA derived from blood as well as both germline and somatic mutations in DNA derived from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded (FFPE) tissue. Screening for germline mutations in such genes allows research into familial risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. Analysis of somatic mutations in a tumour can help research into drug response and the development of new therapies. SureSeq Interpret Software, OGT’s freely provided powerful, standalone data analysis package, converts results into an intuitive interactive report which allows for easy filtering of variants without the need for in-house bioinformatics resource. The high sensitivity of the panel enables more accurate detection of low-frequency variants, commonly found in heterogeneous cancer samples, than obtained using alternative NGS techniques.