NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Edico Genome said today that Sequenom has purchased its Dragen Bio-IT processor for use in analyzing genomic data from its tests, following a collaborative proof-of-concept study by the firms of the software.
Dragen is an application-specific integrated circuit system for next-generation sequence data analysis. The infrastructure consists of a chip loaded with proprietary algorithms for tasks such as mapping, alignment, sorting, and variant calling that can be integrated into sequencing machines and servers. Edico unveiled Dragen earlier this year at the Bio-IT World conference in Boston. The firm noted that this is the first system it has sold.
"Edico Genome's DRAGEN chip analyzes the large amounts of sequencing data we generate in a rapid and cost-effective manner, without compromising accuracy," Tim Burcham, Sequenom's vice president, informatics and software, said in a statement. "This has the potential to improve the analysis of next-generation sequencing data, by reducing analysis time and storage costs, and potentially improving turnaround time."
"The non-invasive prenatal testing market is a space where our chip's ability to analyze large amounts of genomic data faster and more cost efficiently could have a significant impact," added Pieter van Rooyen, Edico Genome's CEO. "We look forward to exploring Dragen's potential in additional markets, such as comprehensive tumor profiling for cancer patients and diagnosis of rare genetic diseases."
The companies will present a poster that shows the results of the proof-of-concept study that compared the performance of Sequenom's current analysis pipeline with Dragen at the American Society of Human Genetics annual meeting in October.