Quicker than an NGS minute

QIAGEN acquires Ingenuity Systems, adding time-saving solution for analysis and interpretation of complex biological data

Lloyd Dunlap
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HILDEN, Germany—Ingenuity Systems, a privately held U.S.company based in Redwood City, Calif., "has created the market-leading,expertly curated knowledge system of biomedical information and analysissolutions for the exploration, interpretation and analysis of complexbiological systems," claims the press release announcing the company's recentacquisition by QIAGEN NV.
 
 
QIAGEN acquired Ingenuity for $105 million in cash (subjectto customary purchase price adjustments) from existing cash reserves. In 2013,QIAGEN expects to report adjusted net sales (non-GAAP basis) of approximately$15 million from Ingenuity, excluding certain fair-value adjustments. Thetransaction is expected to be dilutive to full-year 2013 adjusted diluted EPSby approximately 3 cents per share and to 2014 adjusted diluted EPS by approximately2 cents per share, and become accretive in 2015.
 
 
QIAGEN spokesman Dr. Thomas Theuringer says, "Ingenuity'ssolutions are used by thousands of researchers and clinicians at hundreds ofleading pharmaceutical, biotechnology, academic, diagnostic and clinicalinstitutions worldwide. The top 40 pharmaceutical companies have adoptedIngenuity's technology. We were looking for an addition that would help usexpand our bioinformatics analysis and interpretation capabilities and one thatwould integrate well into our ecosystem of molecular testing solutions (whichincludes reagents, automated platforms, content and interpretation solutionsfor NGS, PCR and pyrosequencing). Ingenuity was not only the market leader, butalso the right fit, since the two companies share similar cultures andvisions."
 
 
The foundation of Ingenuity's product portfolio is theIngenuity Knowledge Base, a 14-year effort to accurately and manually curate,model and computationally structure the vast amount of biomedical literature,including genomic variations implicated in human disease and thousands ofdisease models. The Ingenuity Knowledge Base and software applications enableusers to accurately interpret the meaning of increasingly large amounts ofbiological data to better guide scientific experiments and medical treatmentdecisions.
 
 
"The interpretation of biological information is becoming acornerstone of QIAGEN's ecosystem of Sample & Assay Technologies formolecular testing—both in life-science research and in diagnostics. We areestablishing a leading role in this field, and intend to further expand thevalue proposition and scope of our offering," says Peer M. Schatz, CEO ofQIAGEN. "Ingenuity has created unparalleled leadership with its Knowledge Baseand interpretation solutions to unlock the value of complex genomic and otherbiological information. Combining the highest-quality knowledge content withpowerful search capabilities and easy-to-use interfaces, the Ingenuity suiteprovides customers with scientifically and clinically relevant insights intodiseases. We are looking forward to expanding the seamless integration ofleading biomedical information solutions into our full range of moleculartesting solutions, thereby providing our customers a unique experience fromsample to interpreted result and recommendations for next steps."
 
 
Integration of Ingenuity's solutions into a powerful,full-range ecosystem of QIAGEN's molecular testing solutions, such as PCR andnext-generation sequencing, promises to offer significant value to QIAGENcustomers and shareholders, Schatz adds.
 
 
"Today, we can sequence an entire human genome in just acouple of days for less than a few thousand dollars, but the data analysis cantake from months to years. The Ingenuity suite of products enables this rapidand accurate interpretation in a matter of minutes, and this is fundamentallyimpacting scientific research and the ability to diagnose and manage patientcare," notes Jake Leschly, president and CEO of Ingenuity Systems.
 
 
Citing examples of typical Knowledge Base NGS processingspeeds, Theuringer says, "for IPA, a reasonably sized data set (1,000 genes)takes on the order of five minutes to complete the analysis. For VariantAnalysis, 76 percent of researchers report saving at least one day, with 32percent stating they save more than three days. In general, an exome analysisof more than 50 samples takes approximately five minutes. For whole-genomesamples, smaller data sets (~ five samples) take a few minutes, and large datasets of 20 or more samples may take up to an hour to complete the analysis."
 
 
 

Lloyd Dunlap

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