HILDEN, Germany—QIAGEN N.V. has announced this week theacquisition of Ingenuity Systems, Inc., a Redwood City, Calif.-based softwaresolutions provider. No financial details were disclosed.
Ingenuity is a privately held company that boasts a market-leadingknowledge system of biomedical information and analysis solutions to aid usersin interpreting and analyzing complex biological systems.
"The interpretation of biological information is becoming acornerstone of QIAGEN's ecosystem of Sample & Assay Technologies formolecular testing - both in life sciences research and in diagnostics. We areestablishing a leading role in this field and intend to further expand thevalue proposition and scope of our offering," Peer M. Schatz, CEO of QIAGENN.V., said in a press release.
"Ingenuity has created unparalleled leadershipwith its Knowledge Base and interpretation solutions to unlock the value ofcomplex genomic and other biological information. Combining the highest-qualityknowledge content with powerful search capabilities and easy-to-use interfaces,the Ingenuity suite provides customers with scientifically and clinicallyrelevant insights into diseases," he continued. "We are looking forward to expanding theseamless integration of leading biomedical information solutions into our fullrange of molecular testing solutions, thereby providing our customers a uniqueexperience from sample to interpreted result and recommendations for nextsteps. Integration of Ingenuity's solutions into a powerful, full-range ecosystemof QIAGEN's molecular testing solutions, such as PCR and next-generationsequencing, promises to offer significant value to QIAGEN customers andshareholders."
Ingenuity's product portfolio is based on its IngenuityKnowledge Base, which sought to manually curate, model and computationallystructure biomedical literature, including genomic variations found in humandiseases. It consists of algorithms that pair all human gene variations withbiological interpretations established with known outcomes. The pairings arereviewed by experts in a standardized format, and the resulting data istranslated into interwoven collections. This collection and its softwareapplications enable more accurate, simpler interpretation of the reams of datathat result from genomics and next-generation sequencing in the study andanalysis of diseases and disease models.
Among Ingenuity's product offerings are Ingenuity PathwaysAnalysis, for the modeling and analysis of biological systems in life-sciencesresearch; Ingenuity Variant Analysis, a web-based next-generation sequencingdata analysis application that aids in the rapid identification of relevantcausal variants in human diseases; and Ingenuity iReport, an interactiveweb-based report that is optimized for gene expression experiments fromRNA-Seq, microarray and real-time PCR platforms.
Ingenuity's data and analysis offerings will expand onQIAGEN's own curated database and its GeneGlobe content portal, which provideshundreds of assay panels for PCR and next-generation sequencing in addition tomore than 60,000 fully annotated molecular assays for the most popular diseasesand pathways.
"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," Jake Leschly, president and CEO of Ingenuity Systems, commented in astatement. "The Ingenuity mission from day one has been to acceleratescientific discovery and enhance clinical decision-making through a richunderstanding of biological systems. As part of QIAGEN, we will offer ourbiological knowledge content and software in the context of a best-in-classecosystem of molecular testing solutions and to a greatly expanded range ofcustomers around the world."
SOURCE: QIAGEN press release
