EMERYVILLE, Calif. & COLD SPRING HARBOR, N.Y.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Omicia, a privately held company offering integrated solutions for interpreting human genome sequences, announced today that it has initiated an early access program for its individual genome interpretation product. Through this product, Omicia will enable users to prioritize and identify disease genes and their variants using an intuitive and interactive web-based application environment. The solution was designed for clinical researchers in genomic and translational medicine. Omicia is providing a preview to attendees of The Biology of Genomes annual meeting taking place this week at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, NY.
Omicia also announced today that Leroy Hood, MD, PhD, President and Co-founder of the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB), and Paul Flicek, Team Leader and Senior Scientist at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory’s European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), have joined the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.
“The falling cost and rising speed of DNA sequencing has quickly shifted the focus to genome interpretation, which has been until now, a rate limiting step,” said Martin Reese, PhD, Founder and CEO of Omicia. “Omicia is pleased to offer early access to our data analysis solution designed to bring the time and costs associated with interpretation into parity with sequencing. Further, we are honored to welcome Drs. Leroy Hood and Paul Flicek to our Scientific Advisory Board. Their expertise in the fields of personalized medicine and scalable data management will support our vision of making the use of genomic data routine in clinical care.”
“Simplicity and speed are needed for bridging the chasm of adoption in clinical genomics. Omicia has made significant progress in making genome-based intelligence available at clinical speed, where decisions often need to be made within hours,” added Dr. Hood.
“With today’s announcement, Omicia has, for the first time, provided a realistic and cost-effective platform for quickly analyzing genomic data using sophisticated algorithms and an intuitive and interactive user interface,” added Dr. Flicek.
Genome comparison methods such as the VAAST (Variant Annotation, Analysis and Search Tool) algorithm, developed by Omicia and Dr. Mark Yandell at the University of Utah, will be integrated into the underlying platform powering Omicia’s genome interpretation service. Last month, Omicia and the University of Utah were awarded a Bio-IT World Best Practices Award for the use of VAAST in identifying damaged genes and their disease-causing variants in individual genome sequences. To date, more than 100 research institutions around the world have licensed the academic version of VAAST. Omicia will launch a commercial version of VAAST later this year.
Omicia’s Early Access Program will be available directly from Omicia as well as through third parties such as Illumina’s® BaseSpace Apps. BaseSpace is Illumina's next-generation sequencing cloud computing environment.
About Omicia, Inc.
Based in Emeryville, California, Omicia is developing scalable and fully integrated informatics systems specifically designed to interpret human genome sequences for research, diagnostic and clinical applications. Omicia’s mission is to help doctors and patients better understand how an individual’s genome affects their health and disease risks. The company is the recipient of multiple NIH grants to fund its innovations. For more information about Omicia, please visit www.omicia.com.