Toshiba Corp moves ahead on genotyping for Japan

SANTA CLARA, USA: Affymetrix's Axiom Genotyping Solution platform has been selected by Toshiba Corporation’s Healthcare Company as the platform for its newly launched genotyping service.

Affymetrix announces that it collaborated with Toshiba to custom design and manufacture the Japonica Array, which is based on the Axiom platform. This array contains unique genetic content specifically optimized for the Japanese population. Toshiba has launched this genotyping service as of Dec. 1, 2014 for Japanese population genotyping studies primarily servicing universities, hospitals, and other research agencies and institutes, as a note added.

“After reviewing various microarray technology providers, we selected Affymetrix’ Axiom platform for our genotyping service based on its high throughput capability, cost effectiveness, superior performance, and highly reproducible manufacturing process. The team at Affymetrix worked closely with our scientists in designing this array, which contains the genetic content developed as the result of the collaboration with Tohoku University. It was a pleasure collaborating with Affymetrix in the development of Japonica Array,” said Satoshi Tsunakawa, Corporate Senior Vice President of Toshiba Corporation and President and CEO of Toshiba’s Healthcare Company.

“We are very pleased to support Toshiba in delivering high-quality and cost-effective genotyping service to enable Japanese researchers to better understand the genetic markers associated with diseases and response to therapy specific to the Japanese population,” said Frank Witney, CEO and President of Affymetrix.