Roche NimbleGen, Inc And Kapa Biosystems Team Up To Provide Optimized Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS) Target Enrichment Workflow Solution

Madison, WI, USA, December 19, 2013 / B3C newswire / - Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) and Kapa Biosystems announced today a partnership to provide an optimized NGS target enrichment workflow solution. Kapa Biosystems will custom manufacture NGS library preparation products for Roche NimbleGen to distribute to its customers. Roche NimbleGen’s new offering combines KAPA Library Preparation Kits with Roche NimbleGen sequence capture products for complete workflow coverage, prior to sequencing. This validated protocol provides customers with the ability to work with low DNA quantity or quality, including FFPE DNA for whole exome or targeted sequencing. Compared to other workflows, this offering significantly reduces GC bias and obtains better molecular complexity, resulting in further improved enrichment performance.

“In addition to providing innovative technologies, Roche NimbleGen has always been committed to maximizing customer convenience, and we make every effort to achieve this goal,” said Rebecca Selzer, President, Roche NimbleGen, “now our customers have a complete and streamlined workflow solution, from the combination of two industry-leaders with a reputation of high performing products.”

“Our partnership with Roche NimbleGen brings together complementary, best-in-class products for target enrichment, enabling higher quality sequencing across a broad range of sample types and DNA inputs. We are committed to continuously providing customers with enhanced product functionality that addresses the growing diversity of sequencing applications,” said John Foskett, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Kapa Biosystems.

In addition to the KAPA Library Preparation Kits, Roche NimbleGen will also introduce other reagents in this offering to support the target enrichment workflow. All new products in this offering are available for ordering.

Terms and financials of the partnership were not disclosed.

About Kapa Biosystems

Kapa Biosystems is a life science reagents supplier that employs proprietary, directed evolution technologies to optimize enzymes for PCR, real-time PCR, next generation sequencing and molecular diagnostic applications. Kapa Biosystems offers a portfolio of best-in-class products containing novel enzymes that confer significant performance advantages when compared to traditional wild-type enzymes. The company is based in Wilmington, Massachusetts with a research, development and manufacturing facility in Cape Town, South Africa. For more information, please visit www.kapabiosystems.com

About Roche

Headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, Roche is a leader in research-focused healthcare with combined strengths in pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Roche is the world’s largest biotech company, with truly differentiated medicines in oncology, infectious diseases, inflammation, metabolism and neuroscience. Roche is also the world leader in in vitro diagnostics and tissue-based cancer diagnostics, and a frontrunner in diabetes management. Roche’s personalised healthcare strategy aims at providing medicines and diagnostic tools that enable tangible improvements in the health, quality of life and survival of patients. In 2012 Roche had over 82,000 employees worldwide and invested over 8 billion Swiss francs in R&D. The Group posted sales of 45.5 billion Swiss francs. Genentech, in the United States, is a wholly owned member of the Roche Group. Roche is the majority shareholder in Chugai Pharmaceutical, Japan. For more information, please visit www.roche.com.

NIMBLEGEN and SEQCAP are trademarks of Roche.

KAPA is a trademark of Kapa Biosystems.

All other product names and trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

For further information please contact:

Roche Sequencing

Beth Button

Phone: +1 317 847 5172

Email : beth.button@roche.com

Kapa Biosystems

Brian Komorous

Phone: +1 855 KAPABIO (527 2246)

Email: brian.komorous@kapabiosystems.com

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