Illumina will see expanded use of its technologies in China through a new partnership with a Chinese provider of diagnostic testing services used by hospitals and physicians in every province of the mainland, the companies said today. The value of the partnership was not disclosed.

Kindstar Global will expand its services within its network of more than 3,300 hospitals across China by using Illumina’s TruSight™ content sets, Infinium® Dx CytoSNP-12 assay and NuPCR™ reagents.

With laboratory facilities in Beijing, Shanghai, and Wuhan, Kindstar is the first and largest esoteric diagnostic testing business in China, providing laboratory testing services to over 3,300 Chinese hospitals, including 930 of the largest or “tertiary” hospitals. Among specialties for which Kindstar offers advanced diagnostics are hematology, oncology, infectious diseases, and medical genetics.

“Next-generation sequencing is enabling a dramatic improvement in both coverage and accuracy for molecular diagnostics, and we look forward to additional partnerships that continue to drive this improvement forward,” Matt Posard, senior vp and general manager of Illumina’s Translational and Consumer Genomics business, said in a statement.

China and the rest of Asia are fast-growing markets for Illumina. During the fourth quarter of 2012, the company saw a 30% year-over-year growth in shipments of equipment and supplies to the world’s most populous nation, as well as 12% year-over-year growth in Asia, CEO and President Jay Flatley said January 28 during a conference call with analysts following release of Q4 2012 results.

Illumina says its TruSight content sets are designed for clinical research labs seeking simple workflow, pre-designed expert content intended to reduce assay optimization time and manual error accuracy, and productivity through available product lot testing, extended shelf life, and single-lot shipments.

InfiniumDx CytoSNP-12 enables simultaneous interrogation of thousands of SNPs in multiple samples. Featuring single-tube sample preparation and genome-wide amplification without PCR or ligation steps, the Infinium assay protocol is designed to reduce labor and sample-handling errors.

NuPCR™ reagents for qPCR provide what Illumina says is a specific, sensitive, and budget-friendly solution for analyzing gene expression using real-time PCR. Key to the NuPCR reaction is the NuZyme complex that will bind and fluoresce only in the presence of the target sequence, offering what the company calls the highest target specificity currently available. For even higher integrity of analysis, NuPCR probes can be duplexed for detection of the target and reference gene in the same well.

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