Qiagen and BioHelix sign licensing agreement

This licensing agreement adds a further amplification technology to Qiagen’s broad intellectual property estate of amplification and assay technologies that includes numerous PCR and PCR-similar technologies as well as technologies such as rolling circle amplification and whole genome/transcriptome amplification.

Helicase Dependent Amplification (HAD) is said to be a versatile assay technology to detect and analyze biological target molecules such as DNA and RNA by amplifying target specific genetic information with the highest level of sensitivity and specificity. By combining the HDA platform with other assay technologies including Qiagen’s hybrid capture technology, the important tests in women’s health, human papillomavirus, chlamydia trachomatis and neisseria gonorrhoeae can be run using a single instrument and a single specimen.

Jim Godsey, senior vice president R&D North America for Qiagen, said: “The ability to amplify DNA or RNA using an isothermal amplification system opens up a wide field of new assays in many areas, in particular in human molecular diagnostics and applied testing.”