Takara Bio USA Holdings, Inc. (San Jose, California, USA), a wholly owned subsidiary of Takara Bio Inc. (hereinafter ”Company”), has entered into a patent license agreement with 10x Genomics, Inc. (hereinafter “10x”) of the United States regarding the Spatial products “Seeker™” and “Trekker™” used in spatial transcriptome analysis (Note 1) (hereinafter “spatial analysis”). Through the execution of this agreement, Takara Bio Group will be able to offer Seeker™ and Trekker™ worldwide without any restrictions on sales regions.
Seeker™ and Trekker™ are advanced products for spatial analysis (Spatial products) developed by Curio Bioscience, Inc., which the Company acquired in January 2025. Analysis using NGS (Next-Generation Sequencing) (Note 2) technology has rapidly evolved from bulk analysis to single-cell analysis and further to spatial analysis, and the Company positions Seeker™ and Trekker™ as core products in this new growth field of spatial analysis.
Carol Lou, President and CEO of Takara Bio USA, Inc., a subsidiary of the Company, commented: “We are very pleased that this agreement enables us to resolve patent disputes, expand global access to our spatial multiomics technologies, and support further advancement of research by scientists worldwide. With Seeker™ and Trekker™ now available worldwide, scientists can generate truly comprehensive spatial datasets that integrate multiple molecular dimensions and accelerate the pace of discovery across a wide range of applications.”
[About 10x Genomics, Inc.]
Name: 10x Genomics, Inc.
Location: 6230 Stoneridge Mall Road, Pleasanton, CA 94588 USA
Business: Development, manufacturing, and sales of research instruments and reagents in the fields of single-cell analysis and spatial analysis
[Glossary]
1. Spatial Transcriptome Analysis (Spatial Analysis)
A technology that performs comprehensive analysis at high resolution while retaining information (positional information) on which cells within a tissue express genes. An approach that integrates spatial information and multiple molecular data (such as the transcriptome) is referred to as spatial multi-omics.
2. Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS)
A cutting-edge DNA sequencing method that enables the parallel acquisition of large volumes of sequence data ranging from hundreds to hundreds of millions of base sequences. It allows rapid and low-cost sequencing and is used in various genetic analysis applications. Analytical instruments based on next-generation sequencing methods are referred to as next-generation sequencers.
