NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Edico Genome said today that it raised $10 million in a Series A round of financing that it will use to commercialize its Dragen Bio-IT Processor, an application-specific integrated circuit system for next-generation sequence data analysis.
The financing round was led by Qualcomm through its venture investment group Qualcomm Ventures. The list of investors includes Axon Ventures and Greg Lucier, former Life Technologies chairman and CEO. As part of his investment, Lucier has joined Edico Genome's board of directors.
Edico plans to launch Dragen at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting in October. The processor is embedded on a PCIe form factor card that can be integrated into sequencing machines and servers. It comes preloaded with highly optimized algorithms for mapping, alignment, sorting, and variant calling.
According to Edico, Dragen reduces the computational time needed to analyze a whole human genome from 24 hours to 18 minutes. It also reduces the need for large clusters to process data and by extension reduces storage and infrastructure spending.
"Advancing and expanding the use of genomics in the clinic can only be achieved if researchers and physicians can quickly, efficiently, and accurately process the immense amount of data generated from a human genome sequence," Lucier said in a statement. "Edico Genome's solution to speed data analysis and lower costs has the potential to have a large impact on many areas of medicine, particularly in oncology and non-invasive prenatal testing."