As one of the most successful medical bioinformatics start-ups in Europe, Sophia Genetics (Switzerland) has now forged a partnership with a US nucleic acid synthesis company to facilitate the transition to Data Driven Medicine.
This Swiss start-up led the way in European medical informatics when their software earned accreditation to store patient genomic data – a true privacy and ethics minefield for the field. This software and data could then be used as an In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) device.
Hospitals generate incredible amounts of data from next generation sequencing (NGS), which is performed to run tests on patient tissue samples for disease. Because this data is hard to interpret manually, Sophia’s analytics aim to make genetic diagnostics easier.
The software is already used by more than 100 hospitals and Data Driven Medicine is a big potential disruptor in the Healthcare industry. Their innovative approach to medical informatics even put them at the 5th place in the TOP 100 Swiss Start-Up Ranking in 2015.
Sophia Genetics has now partnered with Integrated DNA Technologies in Iowa (US), which operates in nucleic acid synthesis. The aim is to create a ‘bundle product’ with Sophia’s algorithms and IDT’s target capture platform (a key process in NGS to increase the procedure’s efficiency).
As the CEO of IDT, Joseph Walder, explained, this bundle will ease the adoption of diagnostics based on NGS data, as it “will relieve the burden of having to test different available NGS enrichment technologies themselves”.
The first disease focus from this service is the diagnosis of hereditary cancers (like breast, ovarian, and colon cancers). Leukemia and cardiovascular disease are also future targets.
If this new collaboration and products are successful, it can make Data Driven Medicine a reality for most hospitals – both improving healthcare in Europe and increasing the market share of both companies.
Feature Image Credit: Mix up of Graphics by Labiotech (Sources: Sophia Genetics)