NanoString introduces nCounter Analysis System

NanoString Technologies, Inc., a privately held provider of life science tools for translational research and developer of molecular diagnostics, today announced the launch of its second generation nCounter^® Analysis System. The new system features improvements that enable more ambitious translational research studies than have been previously possible, and lays the groundwork for future nCounter-based molecular diagnostics. Improvements in the system include higher throughput, more flexible data analysis software, and hardware designed and manufactured to the quality standards typical of in vitro diagnostics platforms.

The nCounter Analysis System is a fully automated, multi-application digital detection and counting system with a very simple workflow. The nCounter system has been employed in basic and translational research since it was first introduced in 2008. NanoString provides assays for gene expression, miRNA analysis and copy number variation.

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard was an early access customer for the first generation nCounter Analysis System, and will be the first NanoString customer to receive the second generation system. The Broad Institute has ordered two second generation systems, bringing their total number of nCounter systems to five.

"The nCounter system has been adopted for applications and projects throughout the Broad Institute in areas as diverse as genome analysis, epigenomics, infectious disease, metabolic disease, and cancer," said Aviv Regev, Ph.D., a core member at the Broad Institute.

Nir Hacohen, Ph.D., a senior associate member at the Broad Institute, added: "NanoString's system has become central to many of our studies where we want to have accurate counts of mRNAs from small numbers of mouse and human immune cells. We are looking forward to the next generation nCounter system to accelerate some of our larger projects."

The new nCounter Digital Analyzer has a throughput that is 50% greater than the first generation system, allowing researchers to more quickly process studies of hundreds or thousands of samples. Along with the second generation system, NanoString is introducing the nSolver™ software package that allows users to quickly and easily quality control, normalize and analyze their large nCounter data, and transfer results to third party software packages for data visualization or cross platform analysis. The new nCounter Analysis System is manufactured under ISO 13485 and GMP, the quality standards typical of in vitro diagnostic (IVD) platforms. The second generation system includes the hardware upon which the company will pursue regulatory clearance for its NanoString Breast Cancer Intrinsic Subtyping Assay and other molecular diagnostic assays.

Brad Gray, President and CEO of NanoString Technologies, commented: "The nCounter system is ideal for large-scale pathway-based translational research and for the validation of Next Generation Sequencing results. The enhanced features introduced today will help ensure our customers spend even less time generating data, and more time extracting meaning from their studies. In addition, the introduction of IVD-quality hardware is an important milestone along our path of developing nCounter-based molecular diagnostics."