GEDmatch owners Verogen bought by QIAGEN for US $150 million

Thanks to Debbie Kennett via Twitter (@DebbieKennett) for flagging up that GEDMatch owners Verogen have just been acquired by a Dutch company called QIAGEN for US $150 million. The full press release is at https://corporate.qiagen.com/English/newsroom/press-releases/press-release-details/2023/QIAGEN-Completes-Acquisition-of-Verogen-Strengthening-Leadership-in-Human-ID--Forensics-With-NGS-Technologies/default.aspx.

The press release notes the following on the acquisition with regards to the further development of the company's forenisc services:

Human identification DNA techniques have evolved greatly over the past few decades, helping to meet huge challenges like in the aftermaths of wars and natural disasters, as well as to support advances in criminal justice. As just one example, the International Commission on Missing Persons in the Netherlands to date has profiled more than 44,000 bone samples and made more than 18,000 identifications – all processed using QIAGEN chemistry and kits.

However, the limitations of today’s broadly used workflows based on short-tandem-repeat (STR) analyses using capillary electrophoresis (CE) technology impede matches in an estimated 60-85% of traditional searches. This has resulted in a backlog of about 1 million unsolved cases in the U.S. alone.

Law enforcement, military and other forensic experts around the world increasingly look to NGS for its unprecedented genetic insights, such as allowing investigators to infer unique attributes like hair and eye color and biogeographical ancestry.

Verogen’s sequencing and analysis solutions are designed for use on the MiSeq FGx® Sequencing System from Illumina, Inc. With this acquisition, QIAGEN gains exclusive distribution rights for this version of the MiSeq sequencer designed specifically for forensics applications. More than 300 MiSeq FGx Sequencing Systems have been placed to date, marking a strong entry into this market segment. The Verogen portfolio of kits for use on this sequencer includes the ForenSeq suite of kits including DNA Signature Prep, Imagen, Kintelligence and MainstAY product lines, all providing forensics experts with better answers to help solve the most complex unresolved cases.

Chris 

My new book Tracing Your Irish Ancestors Through Land Records is now available to buy at https://bit.ly/IrishLandRecords. Also available - Sharing Your Family History Online, Tracing Your Scottish Family History on the Internet, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet (2nd ed), and Tracing Your Scottish Ancestry Through Church and State Records - to purchase, please visit https://bit.ly/ChrisPatonPSbooks. Further news published daily on The Scottish GENES Facebook page, and on Twitter @genesblog.