How to Choose the Right CRO for Your RNA-Seq Experiment

CROs are often global genomics services companies and trusted providers of Sanger sequencing, next generation sequencing (NGS), gene synthesis, molecular biology, bioinformatics and GLP regulatory services. They serve research communities across the world and partner with academic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, agricultural, government, and clinical institutions. 

Most CROs offer a wide range of services with certain specializations. Which of the CROs you should choose depends on several factors. Does the CRO specialize in your unique research questions? Will you receive industry-leading turnaround times, competitive pricing and local support. What are the logistics like? For example, due to time constraints, it may make sense to work with a partner that is located in your region.

Let’s look at some prominent players in the industry that offer sequencing and data acquisition services in transcriptomics.

GENEWIZ 
GENEWIZ from Azenta Life Sciences is based in Leipzig, Germany, and aims to make research more productive and cost-effective through scalable services. Genewiz offers a wide range of services, such as bulk RNA-seq, single cell RNA-seq, whole genome sequencing, protein biomarker detection and exome sequencing. The company also has a growing network of genomics laboratories around the world, including in the U.S., U.K. and China. [1]

Labcorp
With nonclinical and clinical trial laboratories around the world, this CRO can scale quickly and efficiently, conducting more than 15,000 research studies and processing more than 4.4 million clinical trial test kits annually. Labcorp offers integrated genomic testing services through an extensive network of global capabilities and laboratories: core genomic services, NGS, biomarker translation and computational biology. [2] 

Eurofins Genomics
Founded in 1990, Eurofins Genomics is part of the Eurofins Scientific Group, a life science company with laboratories in over 50 countries and more than 55,000 employees focused on delivering high-quality results to its customers on time. [3] In 2017, Eurofins acquired GATC Biotech, a European sequencing services provider with more than 10.000 customers from academia, industry, and healthcare. GATC offers genomics such as transcriptome, epigenome, exome or whole genome analysis, and bioinformatics.

Lexogen
Lexogen focuses on RNA and complete transcriptome studies using NGS technologies. Lexogen provides a fully integrated workflow for sequencing known and unknown RNAs in any species, accurately quantifying gene expression, and detecting novel transcripts and isoforms. The service portfolio includes applications such as gene expression profiling, gene expression screening, mRNA sequencing, whole transcriptome sequencing, small RNA sequencing, single cell, and ultra-low input RNA sequencing. [4]

Psomagen
Psomagen, Inc. formerly Macrogen Corp, provides multiomics services to the clinical, academic and consumer markets. The company operates CLIA- and CAP-certified laboratories in four locations across the United States and is accredited to perform the highest quality Sanger sequencing, NGS, and microarray gene analysis, making multi-omics solutions and genomics technologies accessible and scalable for research and drug discovery. 

LGC Genomics
LGC Genomics is a business unit of LGC Group and was founded in April 2010 as part of a strategic realignment. The company combines the strengths of LGC Group’s former AGOWA Genomics business, based in Berlin, Germany, with the goal of growing in the fast-growing international genomics market. As an international science-based company, it is the market leader in analytical, forensic and diagnostic services and reference standards. 

Sygnature Discovery
Sygnature Discovery is an integrated drug discovery and non-clinical solutions provider. The company provides a wide array of capabilities to support gene expression studies, providing analysis of both single gene changes, as well as, analysis of the expression levels of the entire transcriptome.

In addition to these providers, there are of course many other leading CROs that offer similar services for transcriptomics data generation for research, drug development and clinical applications, e.g. Charles River Laboratories, WuXi App Tec, Q2 Solutions, Illumina Clinical Services, Novogene, and Macrogen.