Source BioScience launches DNA sequencing operation in US – facility based in Santa Fe Springs

Source BioScience plc, the international laboratory services and products business, today announces the launch of its US business, operating out of facilities in Santa Fe Springs and Atlanta. The Company will hold a ribbon cutting ceremony today at its Santa Fe Springs site to celebrate the launch.

The ceremony is being attended by Juanita Trujillo, Mayor of Santa Fe Springs, Bernadette Greene, Deputy Consul-General and Harrison Shapira and Lucy Gharibian of the UK Government’s Department of Trade and Industry based in Los Angeles.

The opening of the 8,100 sq ft facility in Santa Fe Springs will enable the healthcare, life science, biopharma and food industries in the Los Angeles area to access Source BioScience’s state of the art products and services, including the Company’s Overnight Service™ for DNA sequencing, the fastest sequencing service in the world. Customers using this service benefit from sample collection at the end of the working day and their results returned to them by 7.00 am the following morning.

The facility will also provide Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) compliant storage in partnership with Exova, a provider of testing, calibration and consulting services.

Life science customers will benefit from rapid access to the world’s largest clone resource, consisting of over 20 million clones, housed at Source BioScience’s Atlanta facility. Both US facilities will provide pharma and biopharma stability storage services, all fully compliant with the highest regulatory standards.

Dr Nick Ash, CEO at Source BioScience, commented:

“We are delighted to launch our products and services portfolio into the US market with our state of the art facility at Santa Fe Springs.

“With our world-leading DNA sequencing capabilities, enhanced product portfolio and bio storage facilities, we know we can make a significant contribution to life science research in the Los Angeles area and throughout the US.”

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About the Santa Fe Springs facility

The Source BioScience Santa Fe Springs facility comprises a Stability and Bio Storage service suite along with a state of the art DNA sequencing laboratory. The Stability and Bio Storage service is widely acknowledged as a market leader in the provision of controlled temperature and humidity storage services for the pharmaceutical, medical, healthcare, regenerative medicine and chemical industries. Source BioScience works with many of the major pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in Europe and the USA, providing bespoke solutions to leading organisations. The Company has been storing valuable samples and products for the pharmaceutical, biotech, healthcare and food industries for over 20 years and all storage facilities are fully licensed and registered to national and international standards, including ICH (International Conference on Harmonisation of Technical Requirements for Registration of Pharmaceuticals for Human Use) guidelines.

The Santa Fe Springs facility offers ICH rooms totalling over 8,000 cu ft of validated storage space including secure DEA schedule I-V storage for controlled substances.

Activities

In addition to the ICH rooms, Source BioScience offers its Sentinel® disaster recovery and back-up storage service for all stored product.

The new DNA sequencing laboratory will provide rapid turnaround DNA sequencing to research customers across the USA. Furthermore, those within a 30 mile radius of the Santa Fe Springs facility will benefit from Source BioScience’s Overnight Service™ whereby samples are processed overnight and results can be delivered in less than 7 hours for the start of the following working day.

Customers will be offered a longer read length as standard (up to 1,400 bp) with data automatically delivered via Source BioScience’s SpeedREADTM system. DNA sequencing can be ordered online and over 30 primers are stocked for customers to use, free of charge. Sample and primer storage is also offered to customers and sequencing can be paid for in advance using pre-paid paper or e-vouchers.

About Source BioScience

Source BioScience plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange (LSE: SBS) and is an international laboratory services and products business. The Company supplies customers in the healthcare and life science research markets and operates a network of state-of-the-art laboratory facilities across Europe and the US including laboratories in Oxford and Cambridge, UK, in Berlin, Germany and in Los Angeles (CA) and Atlanta (GA). The Group’s Healthcare operations provide screening and reference laboratory diagnostic testing for cancer and other diseases in addition to complementary products for serology, diagnostics and sample storage. The LifeSciences division provides gene-based laboratory research support from conceptualisation to implementation, calling upon a wide range of innovative technology platforms and an online catalogue of biomolecular tools including cDNA clones and antibodies. The Stability and Bio Storage division provides support for drug discovery, from biomarker discovery and clinical trial services through to stability storage and sample archiving under environmentally controlled conditions. A superior quality management system, including GLP, GCP, GMP and CPA accreditations, make the services very attractive for applications in regulatory studies or in a clinical and diagnostic setting. Source BioScience has its headquarters in the UK. For more information see www.sourcebioscience.com