Illumina launches HumanOmniExpress BeadChip for GWAS

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) today announced the HumanOmniExpress BeadChip (OmniExpress), the newest addition to the Omni family of microarrays for genome-wide association studies (GWAS). Designed as a 12-sample Beadchip, OmniExpress allows interrogation of over 700,000 variants per sample totaling more than eight million available data points on a single chip. Coupled with the Illumina iScan System, OmniExpress enables processing of more than 1,400 samples per week, the highest throughput in the industry.

“OmniExpress, and the recently announced BovineHD BeadChip, are the first two products incorporating Illumina’s 3rd generation array technology, delivering even more content, formats, and flexibility to researchers.”

The markers on OmniExpress are a subset of the content powering Illumina’s flagship GWAS product, the HumanOmni1-Quad, and incorporate an optimized set of SNPs chosen from all three phases of the International HapMap Project. As with the HumanOmni1, researchers starting with OmniExpress can take advantage of future supplemental Omni BeadChips containing new content derived from the 1000 Genomes Project. Priced at $250 (USD) per sample, OmniExpress offers a compelling entry point to the next generation of Illumina Omni arrays.

“The OmniExpress is an extension of the Omni family of microarrays and provides the same high quality data as the Omni1 at a price that is among the most competitive in the industry,” said Jay Flatley, president and CEO of Illumina. “OmniExpress, and the recently announced BovineHD BeadChip, are the first two products incorporating Illumina’s 3^rd generation array technology, delivering even more content, formats, and flexibility to researchers.”

The combination of a multi-sample format, proven assay and intelligently-selected content of OmniExpress offers several key benefits:

• Premiere Genomic Coverage - Greater than 700,000 strategically selected tagSNPs provide genomic coverage up to 90% for Caucasian and Asian populations as assessed by the International HapMap Project.
• Proven Data Quality – Industry-standard Infinium HD Assay affords greater than 99% average call rates and greater than 99.9% reproducibility.
• Industry Best Throughput – With the iScan System, researchers can process in excess of thousands of samples per week.

As with all other Infinium HD products, the OmniExpress BeadChip supports copy number variation (CNV) analyses for disease-association studies and is compatible with Illumina’s automation solutions. First customer shipments of the OmniExpress are expected in the first quarter of 2010.