Otsuka in marketing deal with Third Wave

Otsuka Pharmaceutical of Japan and the USA's Third Wave Technologiesannounced that they have signed a major marketing and distribution agreement, whereby the latter has appointed Otsuka as its exclusive distributor for its Invader research products for genotyping and gene-expression analysis in Japan and other countries in the Far East, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. The companies claim that, together, these territories comprise approximately 25% of the world market for genome research tools.

Third Wave said that the deal with Otsuka will further accelerate its penetration in Japan, "which is emerging as the largest and most robust market for single nucleotide polymorphism analysis products."

The firms added that the agreement is incremental to an existing collaboration with the Japanese government's Millennium Project (Marketletters passim), of which Otsuka is "a prominent member," and for which Third Wave has committed to supplying more than 120,000 Invader assay products. The project is described by the two companies as "the largest SNP-disease association study in the world."