NEW YORK – Ultima Genomics said this week that it has launched an initiative under which it will give away 3 trillion DNA sequencing reads to researchers in the US and Canada free of charge. Researchers affiliated with academic, public, government, and other nonprofit institutions can apply for free sequencing under the "Count on Us" initiative, with applications being accepted on a rolling basis through April 30. Applicants must be new customers of Ultima Genomics. Eligible projects will receive between 10 billion and 100 billion reads up to 300 bp in length, generated on Ultima's UG 100 sequencing platform. Researchers need to provide Ultima-compatible sequencing libraries by June 30. The company will give preference to projects that are at risk due to unexpected budget cuts.
Scale Biosciences said this week that it has joined the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative's Billion Cells Project. The company joins 10x Genomics and Ultima Genomics as a third technology partner for the project. The goal of the CZI-funded effort, announced in February, is to generate a single-cell dataset for a billion cells in order to develop AI-based virtual cell models. Scale Bio will contribute its QuantumScale Single Cell RNA kits and its ScalePlex technology. The firm has already participated in the 100 Million Cell Challenge, a grant program also supported by CZI, Ultima Genomics, Nvidia, and BioTuring that was launched last summer.
German molecular diagnostics company Mainz Biomed reported this week that its 2024 revenues were flat at $893,991 compared to $895,479 in 2023. The company trimmed its net loss to $21.7 million, or $22.36 per share, from a net loss of $26.3 million, or $64.76 per share, in 2023. The firm said its lab network revenue increased 33 percent year over year, reflecting strong demand for its ColoAlert early detection test for colorectal cancer in Europe. Mainz finished 2024 with $6.2 million in cash. Last November, the firm said it had signed an agreement with Thermo Fisher Scientific to codevelop a next-generation CRC screening test.
Eurofins said this week that it has finalized its acquisition of Synlab's clinical diagnostics operations in Spain. The companies said in October that they had reached a deal for Eurofins to buy Synlab's clinical diagnostics testing services, including genetics and anatomical pathology services, for an undisclosed amount. The firms noted that Synlab had recorded revenues of €140 million ($151.4 million) in 2024. The combined company will have more than 2,000 employees and a network of labs with capacity to process more than 100 million lab tests annually, the firms said.
Germany's GenomeDE pilot project said this week that it has received €300,000 ($331,000) in funding from the Federal Ministry of Health (BMG) for 2025. The project is helping to establish genome sequencing as part of the standard of care for cancer and rare diseases. The plan for 2025 is to design a secure data processing environment for data from Germany's national precision medicine model project.
Enzo Biochem said last week that it intends to voluntarily delist its common stock from the New York Stock Exchange and transfer it to the OTCQX Best Market. It anticipates the delisting to become effective on or about April 17, with trading on the OTCQX to start on or about April 18. Enzo had received a delisting warning from the NYSE in January because it did not comply with the listing standards for market capitalization, stockholders' equity, and average closing stock price.
Twist Bioscience and Curio Genomics said this week that they are collaborating on next-generation sequencing workflows in agricultural genomics by offering Twist's FlexPrep Ultra-High Throughput Library Preparation Kit with Curio's bioinformatics software and data platform. The pairing provides agrigenomics customers with a sequencer-agnostic solution from library prep through data analysis to simplify NGS adoption, the companies said.
Mexico's Longevity Medical Institute (LMI) that this week that it is collaborating with Dutch social enterprise OncoInv to offer the OncoSeek multi-cancer early detection (MCED) test in Latin America by integrating the assay with LMI's in-house clinical laboratory cancer screening panel. OncoSeek was developed by San Diego-based liquid biopsy firm SeekIn and is designed to screen for nine common cancer types by detecting seven protein tumor markers. OncoInv and SeekIn previously struck an agreement to expand the global accessibility of SeekIn's tests. OncoInv's new agreement with LMI will pair the OncoSeek test with LMI's panel, which analyzes more than 70 biomarkers, with the combined tests capable of detecting more than 12 types of cancer, the partners said in a statement.
Roche and Gilead Sciences this week both announced layoffs at their respective facilities in the San Francisco area. In notices posted to California's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification system, Roche said it will lay off 108 employees in Santa Clara effective May 28 and Gilead will lay off 149 employees effective May 27.
In Brief This Week is a selection of news items that may be of interest to our readers but had not previously appeared on GenomeWeb.