Qiagen Expands Veterinary Assay Pact with British Lab

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Qiagen today said that it has expanded its partnership with the UK's Veterinary Laboratories Agency to sell three new PCR-based tests for detecting widespread bacterial diseases in horses.

Qiagen has exclusive rights to market the tests, which have been developed and validated in collaboration with the VLA, for Streptococcus equi, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Financial terms of the new agreement were not disclosed.

Qiagen and the VLA started their collaborative efforts in 2006. Since then, Qiagen has launched several PCR-based assays for infectious livestock diseases, including a test for the bovine viral diarrhea virus "which played an important role in the corresponding national eradication program in Switzerland," Qiagen said in a statement.

The firm also noted that the new assays will complement its line of cador molecular tests for animal diseases. Outside of the US, Qiagen sells a molecular assay for Taylorella equigenitalis, which is the cause of contagious equine metritis. Under the new agreement with the VLA, Qiagen said that it will adapt this test to cover additional bacteria that cause infertility, including Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

"Molecular technologies are already the first choice in veterinary testing for many costly viral diseases such as bovine viral diarrhea or bluetongue," Simone Gauch, Qiagen's senior global marketing director for applied testing, said in the statement. "We now also are experiencing a growing demand for modern molecular technologies enabling the fast and reliable detection of bacterial infections."