Skip to main content
Premium Trial:

Request an Annual Quote

Spiral Genetics Completes $3M Series A Round, Partners with Omicia

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Bioinformatics firm Spiral Genetics today announced the completion of its Series A financing that raised $3 million. It also announced a partnership with Omicia.

Venture capital firm DFJ led the round and funds will go toward the development of bioinformatics tools for the analyses of large-scale genomic data. Spiral will use the money to expand its bioinformatics engineering team, scale its sales and marketing efforts, and accelerate product development, it said.

The company's cloud-based platform accelerates the data processing time from days to hours, it added, resulting in the analysis time for a whole genome at 40x coverage at about three hours.

The Seattle-based firm also announced a partnership with Omicia, which develops informatics systems for interpreting human genome sequences for research and clinical applications. The deal will leverage Omicia's Opal solution, a variant analysis tool for genome research and prioritizing disease-causing variants.

Martin Reese, co-founder, president, and CEO of Emeryville, Calif.-based Omicia, said in a statement, "Our partnership with Spiral Genetics allows faster and more accurate interpretation of human genomes for clinical relevance, a critical bottleneck for adoption of genomes into clinical care and laboratory testing.

"In combination with Omicia's Opal system, our partnership will move us closer to a seamless solution from raw sequence data to clinically relevant genomic variants. Speed and user friendliness are critical for adoption of human genome sequencing," he added.

Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.

The Scan

Positive Framing of Genetic Studies Can Spark Mistrust Among Underrepresented Groups

Researchers in Human Genetics and Genomics Advances report that how researchers describe genomic studies may alienate potential participants.

Small Study of Gene Editing to Treat Sickle Cell Disease

In a Novartis-sponsored study in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that a CRISPR-Cas9-based treatment targeting promoters of genes encoding fetal hemoglobin could reduce disease symptoms.

Gut Microbiome Changes Appear in Infants Before They Develop Eczema, Study Finds

Researchers report in mSystems that infants experienced an enrichment in Clostridium sensu stricto 1 and Finegoldia and a depletion of Bacteroides before developing eczema.

Acute Myeloid Leukemia Treatment Specificity Enhanced With Stem Cell Editing

A study in Nature suggests epitope editing in donor stem cells prior to bone marrow transplants can stave off toxicity when targeting acute myeloid leukemia with immunotherapy.