Agilent expands DNA microarray manufacturing

New facility will produce more than one million microarrays per year

Agilent Technologies Inc. (Palo Alto, CA) has announced that it will open a new 15,000 square-foot DNA microarray production facility within the company's Santa Clara, California site. The facility will increase Agilent's current manufacturing capacity, allowing it to ship in excess of 1 million microarrays per year by 2002. The expansion will accommodate increasing demand for Agilent's gene expression system products, which are used by genomics and pharmaceutical scientists for disease and drug discovery research.

"We have been experiencing significant order growth for all of our life sciences technologies, with orders up three fold over a year ago," said Bill Buffington, vice president and general manager of Agilent's Life Sciences Business Unit. "Our current manufacturing capacity at our Palo Alto facility will not be able to keep pace with orders, so we are bringing expanded capacity online to meet expected demand for our customized microarrays."

Last month, Agilent announced that it had formed a new Life Sciences Business Unit to address the growing demand for its life sciences products, as recent advances in genomic research had created unprecedented customer demand for practical, cost-effective, integrated products (see related article). By organizing its R&D, marketing, and sales organizations into a focused Life Sciences Business Unit, Agilent intends to capitalize on opportunities in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, genomics, and academic markets.

For more information: Agilent, 1601 California Ave., MS 17U-4E, Palo Alto, CA 94304-1111. Tel: 650-485-5603. Fax: 650-485-8228.

Edited by Angelo DePalma
Managing Editor, Drug Discovery Online