Agilent Technologies and Lipomics Collaborate to Develop Research, Diagnostic Biomarker Assays

Agilent Technologies Inc. and Lipomics Technologies Inc. today announced that they will collaborate to develop research and diagnostic assays combining Agilent analytical platforms with Lipomics’ expertise in biomarker discovery and validation.

The assays will focus on metabolic diseases, a family of related disorders driven in large part by subtle, long-term dysregulation of lipid metabolism. Lipomics Technologies provides quantitative, diagnostically accurate measurements of more than 1,500 metabolites, allowing comprehensive profiling of whole-body lipid metabolism. The company’s quantitative methods and expertise in lipid biology drive development of clinically relevant diagnostic and research assays.

“Lipomics has developed considerable expertise in investigating the role that lipid metabolism plays in disease mechanisms,” said Michael McNulty, general manager of Diagnostics, Agilent Life Sciences and Chemical Analysis. “Both companies see significant synergies in combining this expertise with Agilent’s capabilities to separate, detect and analyze molecules in the development of new diagnostic tools.”

“We look forward to building clinically relevant diagnostic products together,” said Meeta Patnaik, chief medical officer, Lipomics. “Lipid diagnostics are key to managing patients in areas such as cardiovascular risk, CNS disorders and inflammation, and requires the combination of well validated biomarkers and high-throughput technology for commercialization. The Agilent 2100 Bioanalyzer is key to the collaboration, as the microfluidic-based lab-on-a-chip system delivers the analytical performance, automation and low sample consumption required to study metabolic biomarkers.”

A wider range of Agilent liquid and gas chromatography, hyphenated technique instrumentation, reagents, microarrays and informatics software will also be deployed as needed.