ST. LOUIS — Canopy Biosciences™ LLC, a leading provider of gene editing and gene expression products and services, announced today that they had exclusively licensed technology for error correction in next generation sequencing (NGS) from Washington University.  This license includes both a novel method and bioinformatic tools that combine to significantly improve the level of detection in NGS, allowing for the identification of ultra-rare gene variants.

Initially developed as an ultra-sensitive method to detect residual disease in pediatric leukemia, this error corrected sequencing method utilizes unique molecular index (UMI) technology to help differentiate rare genetic events from errors that may have occurred in the sequencing workflow.  This is clearly an important breakthrough for the clinical space, but the scope of utility for this technology is much broader. In fact, research using this technology has already unveiled gene variants that have been validated and have impacted what we understand about aging, cardiovascular disease, and cancer.

Todd Druley, MD PhD, coinventor of the technology, commented on his technology being licensed by Canopy Biosciences, “Canopy is a great team to bring this technology to market.  Given the ever-expanding applications for this technology, they are committed to making innovation accessible to researchers, which will facilitate another level of insight into disease through NGS.”

Canopy Biosciences expects to launch a service based on this license by the second quarter of 2019.  With this service, Canopy will continue to build on their solid foundation of CRO services, such as RNAseq, NanoString and Meso Scale Discovery, to provide cutting edge and powerful tools to the research community.

Edward Weinstein, PhD, CEO of Canopy Biosciences said, “The power that this technology brings to genomic sequencing is game-changing; taking the error rate for NGS from 5 in 100 sequences to 1 in 10,000.  Such a significant improvement over the current methods has remarkable implications for the research community, but the potential for error corrected sequencing in the clinical space will change the way patients are treated.”