Acacia's CombiMatrix launches, ships first microarray diagnostic product ahead of schedule

By E. Janene Geiss

Philadelphia, April 21 - Acacia Research Corp. said Friday that its CombiMatrix group's subsidiary, CombiMatrix Molecular Diagnostics, has begun shipment of its first diagnostic microarray product.

This product, developed in conjunction with Array Genomics of France, has been designed to detect genomic copy number variations associated with constitutional chromosome imbalances as well as with those associated with more than 40 defined genetic diseases and syndromes, such as DiGeorge and William's syndromes, company officials said in a news release.

Roughly two thirds of patients, mostly children, who exhibit genetic developmental disorders are undiagnosed due to the lack of technology for such diagnosis.

This inability to diagnose the underlying cause of the disorder makes it difficult to provide appropriate medication or useful genetic counseling.

The company said its array, which can be used for pre- and post-natal analysis, will provide much greater genetic information for diagnosing and treating these disorders than is available through conventional cytogenetic testing.

This array is the first of several arrays in the company's pipeline that will help to enable the era of personalized medicine based on a genetic analysis of individual patients, officials said.

The company said it began shipping the product to Europe this week. Officials said it will require Food and Drug Administration approval before it can sell the arrays for diagnostic applications in the United States. But, that regulatory hurdle will not prevent the company from selling the arrays domestically for research purposes.

The company also said it will soon begin offering genetic testing services in its clinical laboratory with its recent CLIA certification.

Acacia Research Corp., based in Newport Beach, Calif., comprises two operating groups, Acacia Technologies group and CombiMatrix group.

The CombiMatrix group is developing a platform technology to rapidly produce customizable arrays, which are semiconductor-based tools for use in identifying and determining the roles of genes, gene mutations and proteins.

The Acacia Technologies group develops, acquires and licenses patented technologies.

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