Orchid Cellmark's strategic focus is the design and development of validated genotyping assays and the subsequent delivery of high quality data, all within a framework of accreditation and quality control. This expertise is finding commercial relevance in a wide range of applications including pharmacogenetic projects in clinical drug development.

Primer extension, Orchid Cellmark's core proprietary genotyping technology, is recognised as one of the most robust and validated methodologies for the analysis of Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs). We have considerable experience of utilising this technology in a range of commercial services from small to large numbers of markers, tested within low or very high sample throughput operations. In addition to SNP services we also analyse a range of other DNA marker systems using our own analysis approaches as well as leading industry standard platforms.

In 2002 Orchid Cellmark's European operation alone provided its customers with over 1.6 million commercial genotypes across its range of services, all delivered within fully validated and accredited quality systems.

During 2001/2002 Orchid developed and validated over 45,000 SNP assays for The SNP Consortium, a collaborative project backed by ten of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies. We are currently working on SNP genotyping projects with three major pharmaceutical companies and are exploring other opportunities to apply our technology and expertise.