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Genome sequencing firm Ultima Genomics has come out of stealth and introduced $600 million in financing. Based in 2016 by its Israeli CEO Gilad Almogy, the corporate has 350 staff together with 50 in Israel at improvement facilities in Rehovot and Hod Hasharon, and remarkably has managed to stop any leaks of knowledge from its staff, traders and improvement facilities.
The corporate has now revealed that it has developed a sequencing machine, which it claims, backed up by analysis set to be revealed in main scientific periodicals, permits genome sequencing for $100, in contrast with the $500-600 it prices utilizing its rival Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN). As well as, Ultima Genomics claims that its genomic sequencing is quicker and deeper – in different phrases, it offers extra knowledge in regards to the genome, extra shortly.
The advantages of those enhancements, that are allowed by means of patents that the corporate has not but revealed, are primarily in two instructions. By way of this expertise, the corporate estimates and hopes, it will likely be potential to realize genome sequencing even right down to single cells, and thus diagnose diseases even sooner than at current, primarily most cancers. As well as, sequencing that’s cheaper, quicker and richer in data, will permit a lot faster progress in tasks that examine the genetics of the particular morbidity of huge numbers of individuals, with a purpose to map the genes concerned in numerous ailments.
Sources at Ultima Genomics say that the explanation for the secrecy through the years was the need to achieve the purpose the place the corporate may show its product, earlier than making any bulletins. The corporate additionally most popular to not fire up its rivals, primarily Illumina.
Ultima Genomics CEO and founder Gilad Almogy is a graduate of the IDF’s Talpiot science and management program. Almogy is as we speak resident within the US. He was a senior vice chairman at Utilized Supplies earlier than founding photo voltaic vitality firm Cogenra Photo voltaic in 2009, which was acquired by SunPower in 2015. In late 2016, Almogy based Ultima.
Almogy stated, “DNA is nature’s storage media and the instruction set for each residing organism, but with present applied sciences, we won’t entry that data on the scale wanted to really perceive complicated biology. Our structure is meant for radical scaling, and the $100 genome is merely the primary instance of what it may well ship. We’re dedicated to constantly drive down the price of genomic data till it’s routinely utilized in each a part of the healthcare system.”
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Ultima Genomics CSO Doron Lipson added, “Scientists and clinicians constantly make tradeoffs between the breadth, depth, and frequency of genomic data they accumulate. By overcoming the restrictions of standard next-generation sequencing applied sciences, researchers can now design experiments and medical assays that had been beforehand not possible.”
One of many first traders in Ultima Genomics was Israeli billionaire and Test Level founder Marius Nacht, who can be a graduate of the IDF’s Talpiot program. Nqcht based the aMoon healthtech and life science funding fund, initially investing his personal belongings earlier than changing into an impartial fund, which lately raised a $750 million development fund. aMoon has additionally invested in Ultima Genomics.
Different traders in Ultima Genomics embody D1 Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Common Atlantic, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed, Playground World, and Founders Fund.
Full disclosure: Marius Nacht is the previous life accomplice of Anat Agmon, a part of the controlling shareholders in “Globes.” They’re concerned in a private and financial dispute
Revealed by Globes, Israel enterprise information – en.globes.co.il – on June 2, 2022.
© Copyright of Globes Writer Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.
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