A Diagnostics & Imaging Week

Accelr8 Technology (Denver, Colorado) reported that NanoString Technologies (Seattle) has acquired a license to use its OptiChem coatings on the NanoString molecular identification platform.

NanoString is preparing for commercial launch of its nCounter Analysis System.

Accelr8 also reported that Schott Nexterion (Jena, Germany) purchased an OptiChem license renewal. The new license enables Schott's Nexterion product group to continue non-exclusive global manufacturing and marketing of OptiChem-coated microarraying slides. The license follows two previous licenses to Schott.

Both licenses require up-front payment to Accelr8 of fees and pre-payment of minimum guaranteed royalties. The licenses provided $200,000 in combined cash payments to Accelr8.

David Howson, president of Accelr8, said, "We are very pleased that NanoString selected OptiChem coatings for their innovative digital gene expression platform. They have exciting technology for molecular bar-coding and need OptiChem's ability to reject background interference while providing high capacity for specific target binding. Their technology has very high sensitivity without amplification. It provides a perfect example of the value of OptiChem's exceptional noise-reduction capabilities.

Howson added: "We now focus almost all of our resources on developing our BACcel rapid bacterial diagnostic system. However, we do continue to jointly publish scientific studies and support an exploratory research program at the University of Groningen [Groningen, the Netherlands] for potential new OptiChem applications. As a result, we have ongoing projects with potential industry partners performing product feasibility studies in a variety of areas," he said.

In other dealmaking: Luminex (Austin, Texas) and Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota) reported a licensing agreement that enables Mayo to provide genetic and other testing services to patients using Luminex's xMAP technology. The agreement contains collaboration and licensing provisions for the inherited disorder thalassemia and opportunities for additional test content creation. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Mayo will enhance its current genetic testing services for thalassemia to include a new molecular diagnostic test based on Multiplex Ligation-dependent Probe Amplification and bead-based liquid micro-array technology using xMAP technology from Luminex.