GATC Biotech to open sequencing laboratory in London BioScience
Innovation Centre
3 November 2009
GATC Biotech, Europe’s leading sequencing service provider for
industrial and academic research, has announced that it will open a
sequencing laboratory in London to provide scientists in UK and Ireland
with single sample sequencing services.
The GATC London Laboratory will be situated in the London BioScience
Innovation Centre (LBIC) and will start operations on January 4, 2010.
It will offer customers a free courier delivery service of less than
24 hours. In addition, in many cities throughout the UK and Ireland GATC
offers a free sample collection service in the evening with overnight
shipment directly to the GATC London Laboratory.
NightXpress — overnight sequencing service
GATC Biotech plans to install a unique '5-to-9' overnight sequencing
service, called NightXpress, which will reduce delivery times to just 16
hours from sample collection. From Monday to Friday, DNA samples will be
collected for free from 5 pm at defined GATC Sample Collection Points
and by 9 am the next morning, including Saturdays, DNA sequencing
results will be ready for download.
With GATC’s overnight service scientists will gain a head start for
follow-up experiments of almost two days. NightXpress will start
operations on February 15, 2010, initially with customers in London and
surrounding areas.
Peter Pohl, CEO at GATC Biotech commented: “With NightXpress we offer
the world’s fastest sequencing service. Being already the first company
in Europe to offer commercial sequencing services, GATC Biotech once
again sets new standards by delivering mass customized sequencing
services with fastest delivery times and at competitive rates.”
The GATC NightXpress service was first launched in Germany in 2007
and GATC now plans to adopt the successful concept for the UK, where the
company has maintained a subsidiary since 2004.
In the last few years GATC has built a network of GATC Sample
Collection Points located in Cambridge, Oxford, Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
Harwell, London, Liverpool, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Aberdeen,
Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Dublin, and the company plans to extend this
network further.
GATC Biotech applies a highly automated sequencing platform for mass
customization using technologies such as Applied Biosystems ABI 3730xl,
Roche Diagnostics GS FLX and Illumina Genome Analyzer IIx. The GATC
London Laboratory, located near Imperial College and University College
London is subject to the same stringent quality standards and automation
as the laboratories in GATC’s headquarters in Constance, Germany.