Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and Watchmaker Genomics to collaborate
Beckman Coulter Life Sciences and Watchmaker Genomics have announced that they have entered into a collaborative partnership with the aim of ‘deliver[ing] robust and reliable automated liquid handling solutions that enable labs to streamline operations and generate consistent results’, according to the press release.
It is expected that the two companies will co-develop methods for NGS library preparation, using Watchmaker’s portfolio of DNA and RNA solutions on Beckman Coulter Life Sciences’ Biomek i7 Dual Hybrid Liquid Handler.
According to the press release, ‘one of the first outputs of this collaboration will be an RNA library preparation method that enables walkaway, automated processing of up to 96 libraries in under 8 hours’. This will utilise the Watchmaker RNA Library Prep Kit with Polaris Depletion.
Elsa Burgess, vice president and general manager of Biotech Workflow Solutions at Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, commented: “As more labs around the world tap into next-generation sequencing, we’re ready to help by delivering innovative solutions to reduce complexities and turnaround time while improving accuracy. This partnership fuels our mission to help labs of all sizes harness the benefits of automation to accelerate pioneering research discoveries, whether for NGS needs, sample management, drug discovery, functional screening, synthetic biology or proteomics.”
Kerri Stellato, chief commercial officer at Watchmaker Genomics, stated: “The genomics field requires innovative tools that address bottlenecks in both workflow and sensitivity while also delivering robust performance with highly challenging sample types. This collaboration will deliver solutions that check all of those boxes – ultimately saving users time and operational bandwidth while improving data quality.”