Rubicon Genomics Announces a Licensing Agreement With Abbott to Develop and Commercialize DNA Methylation Cancer Tests

ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 12 /PRNewswire/ — Rubicon Genomics today announced a licensing agreement with Abbott, which marks the achievement of significant milestones within their on-going Research and Option Agreement for development and commercialization of Rubicon MethylPlex(TM) methylation detection technology for the diagnosis and prognosis of cancer.

Under the terms of the agreement Abbott receives a non-exclusive license to MethylPlex for in vitro molecular diagnostics to detect the presence or risk of prostate, bladder and colon cancer for screening and non-screening indications. Abbott also obtains a non-exclusive license for non-screening applications with other diseases and options to colon cancer biomarkers developed in collaboration with Rubicon.

“This license is a significant validation of the MethylPlex technology as an effective, simple, automatable method for detecting cancer using DNA methylation in patient plasma,” said James Koziarz, Acting President and CEO of Rubicon. Mr. Koziarz went on to say, “The collaboration between Rubicon and Abbott has been very productive with both parties making significant contributions towards development and commercialization of IVD products that employ MethylPlex biomarkers and assays. We look forward to continuing our joint efforts under our collaboration and developing leading edge products.”

About Rubicon Genomics, Inc.

Rubicon, located in Ann Arbor, MI, is a pre-analytical platform company that has developed and commercialized reagents and kits to increase the analytical and clinical performance of analytical platforms including Q-PCR, microarrays, and next-gen sequencing. Its GenomePlex(TM), TransPlex(TM), and MethylPlex(TM) products achieve unbiased amplification and standardization of total DNA, total RNA, and methylated DNA. By producing highly pure DNA of uniform concentration and molecular weight these products increase the sensitivity, specificity, and reproducibility of conventional instrumentation in research and diagnostic applications, including analysis of single cells, formalin-fixed tissue and plasma. Rubicon sells GenomePlex and TransPlex services to the research market, as well as licenses and kits to the clinical markets, including pre-implantation and prenatal testing, and diagnostic manufacturing. GenomePlex and TransPlex kits are sold to the research-only market by Sigma-Aldrich. In addition, Rubicon partners with diagnostic companies using MethylPlex to discover and validate novel DNA methylation biomarkers, and to co-develop cancer diagnostic tests. For more information and to contact Rubicon, please visit www.rubicongenomics.com.

SOURCE Rubicon Genomics, Inc.