Company Announcements

Sarah Cannon, the Cancer Institute of Hospital Corporation of America, merged with Genospace in January to become a wholly owned subsidiary. The companies will harness and use molecular profiling data to more effectively match cancer patients to cutting edge therapies in clinical trials. The genomics data technology will be integrated into Sarah Cannon’s network of oncology programs across the US and UK.

GRAIL announced in March that it raised over $900 million through the first close of Series B financing (see IBO 2/28/17). Strategic investors included Amazon, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson Innovation and Merck. Proceeds were used to repurchase a portion of Illumina’s stake in the company, reducing its ownership to less than 20%. GRAIL anticipates a second close.

In March, Illumina announced a partnership with the Institute of Medicinal Plant Development (IMPLAD) to create the first catalog of genomic references for medicinal plants used as sources in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The first phase will establish a genomic reference for approximately 500 medicinal plants used in TCM utilizing Illumina NGS platforms. After completion and review of the first phase, IMPLAD and Illumina may negotiate a renewal agreement to sequence another 500 medicinal plants to complete the genomic reference for the One Thousand Medicinal Plant Genome (1KMPG).

In April, Illumina, the Human Vaccines Project and Vanderbilt University Medical Center announced an effort to decipher the human immunome, the genetic underpinnings of the immune system.

Illumina announced in April the donation of more than eight thousand associations of somatic genetic alterations to the Clinical Interpretation of Variants in Cancer resource, an openly accessible database hosted by Washington University in St. Louis. Illumina is now the largest donor.

The Munich Leukemia Laboratory (MLL) announced in March a partnership with IBM Watson and Illumina to build a new cognitive technology prototype that aims to help researchers improve leukemia treatment. MLL will use Illumina’s NovaSeq technology to sequence samples from its biobank of more than 500,000 cases. MLL researchers will use Watson to help interpret the genomic data alongside other data sources. The project intends to include innovative testing processes such as automated phenotyping and genotyping, including whole genome sequencing and RNA-Seq in 5,000 cases. MLL will utilize Illumina’s BaseSpace Informatics Suite, including BaseSpace Cohort Analyzer and BaseSpace Correlation Engine.

In March, personalized medicine firm Kailos Genetics entered into a comarketing agreement with Illumina for the Kailos TargetRich line of research solutions for pharmacogenetics targets. The covered product lines are the TargetRich PGxComplete reagent and Kailos Blue data analysis solution.

Armonica Technologies has been formed to develop a DNA sequencing platform to sequence a complete human genome in minutes using optical nanopore sequencing. The technology was licensed from the University of New Mexico.

ZS Genetics and Hitachi High-Technologies announced in March a strategic collaboration to develop and commercialize ZS Genetics’ DNA sequencing platform, which is based on high-resolution electron microscopy and can sequence high-quality long reads (50,000+ base pairs) in single DNA molecules.

In March, ChinaMoneyNetwork.com reported that BGI Genomics plans an IPO on China’s Shenzhen Stock Exchange, with the aim of raising $250 million. Regulatory filings show the company generated 2016 revenues of $250 million, with “fertilization and health services” accounting for 55% of sales.

In March, GENALICE and BioDiscovery entered into a comarketing partnership, under which their respective secondary analysis and NxClinical tertiary informatics genomics interpretation system will be offered together.

Omicia announced in March its rebranding as Fabric Genomics.

Fabric Genomics partnered in March with algorithm developer Sentieon to enhance its secondary analysis capabilities within its Fabric Enterprise platform (see below). The new Fabric Standard secondary analysis solution has no down sampling of reads and is deterministic. The companies plan to codevelop variant calling capabilities for hereditary disease and oncology, including structural variant and CNV capabilities.

In March, Fabric Genomics entered into a technology partnership with service provider Veritas Genetics to accelerate Veritas’ myGenome product for personal whole genome sequencing using Fabric’s Fabric Annotation.

In April, Fabric Genomics partnered with genomic cancer diagnostics company TOMA Biosciences to codevelop end-to-end oncology genomic testing and clinical interpretation offerings for clinical labs.

In March, Advanced Analytical Technologies and TTP Labtech announced a comarketing agreement for their respective Fragment Analyzer and mosquito automated low-volume liquid handler.

Biomedical data analysis firm Seven Bridges announced in March a strategic partnership, including an investment, with Spatial Transcriptomics, which develops tools for visualizing gene expression within tissue samples.

Seven Bridges announced in April that the Simons Genome Diversity Project dataset, which it called the largest dataset of human genetic variation ever collected, is now available for researchers via the Seven Bridges Platform.

In April, Paragon Genomics introduced the CleanPlex target enrichment solution and CleanPlex OncoZoom Panel covering the hotspots of 65 key oncogenes, panels covering the entire coding regions of specific genes and a CleanPlex targeted library preparation kit. CleanPlex background cleaning technology removes nonspecific PCR products generated during highly multiplexed PCR reactions.

GenDx announced in April a global reseller agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific for the rights to offer an end-to-end workflow to HLA typing labs that includes Thermo Fisher’s Ion Torrent NGS systems and consumables with GenDx’s assays and analysis software for allelic-level HLA typing analyses.

1CellBiO, which is developing the inDrop technology for high-throughput single-cell RNA sequencing, announced in April a research collaboration with pharmaceutical firm UCB.

Product Introductions

Lexogen introduced in March its RNA-Seq service, focused on gene expression profiling.

In March, SYGNIS launched the TrueAdvance DNA amplification and validation service for supporting single cell and liquid biopsy NGS applications.

Oxford Nanopore introduced in March the GridION X5, which can run up to five MinION Flow Cells and process the data on a single benchtop device. It can generate 100 GB of data over 48 hours. According to Bio-IT World, the system is available for $125,000 with each flow cell priced at $299. Alternatively, users can commit to 300 flow cells at $475 per cell and pay a $15,000 fee. Oxford Nanopore will offer sequencing-as-a-service certification on the system.

Agilent Technologies launched in March the Agilent SureSelect Clinical Research Exome V2, a new target enrichment solution for NGS. It features more than one thousand additional disease-relevant targets compared to the prior version.

In March, Fabric Genomics introduced Fabric Enterprise, an optimized genomic platform enabling secondary analysis, rapid annotation, guideline-driven variant classification and clinical reporting for both hereditary disease and oncology.

Swift Biosciences released in March the Accel-Amplicon CFTR Panel for interrogating the coding region and select introns within the Cystic Fibrosis Transmembrane Conductance Regulator (CFTR) gene for disease-relevant mutaitons and variants. It covers a genetic footprint of 10 kb and produces ready-to-sequence libraries in two hours.

In March, SeraCare Life Sciences introduced the SeraSeq Inherited Cancer DNA Mix reference materials for NGS. The product combines over 20 pathogenic variants of diverse types in a well-characterized genomic background that can be used for assay development and analytical validation.

Bioline released in March the JetSeq Library Quantification Kit, a qPCR-based assay for quantification of adaptor-ligated DNA fragments during preparation of Illumina-compatible NGS libraries.

SGI-DNA released in March NGS Library Construction Kits for the BioXp 3200 System.

Strand Life Sciences introduced in March Strand NGS 3.0, featuring a DNA-Seq workflow that is 1.5–2x faster than the BWR-GATK best practices workflow.

In April, BioDiscovery released Nexus Copy Number 9.0 for integrated analysis of copy number, sequence variation and loss of heterozygosity. The latest version features support for a wider range of sequencing technologies.

NuGEN Technologies introduced in April the Universal Plus mRNA-Seq and Trio RNA-Seq kits that enable RNA-Seq analyses from routine samples to those isolated from sources like cfRNA and FFPE which normally produce rare or low-quality nucleic acids. The Universal Plus mRNA-Seq kit features the option to eliminate unwanted transcripts after library construction using AnyDeplete technology. The Trio RNA-Seq kit provides a highly sensitive whole transcriptomics solution that is ideally suited for application with low-abundance transcripts.

In April, Roche announced the Certified Service Provider program for SeqCap EZ Target Enrichment Systems utilizing Kapa library preparation kits. Centro Nacional de Análisis Genómico in Spain and Genergy Bio Technology in China have achieved certification.

Sales/Orders of Note

In March, PierianDx announced six new customers for its “One Space” genomics software solution: Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Florida Hospital, Georgia Esoteric & Molecular Laboratory at Augusta University, NorthShore University HealthSystem and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS).

Novogene, a genomics services provider, announced in April an order for 25 Illumina NovaSeq 6000 sequencers, consisting of 5 for the US and 20 for China, purchased by Nanjing Yangzi State Owned Investment Group.