Genome.One in Australia is expanding its genome sequencing service to some specialized primary care facilities, according to the Australian Financial Review.
The Garvan Institute of Medical Research launched the company about a year ago to offer sequencing-based diagnoses for rare genetic diseases and has since expanded its offerings to include sequencing for interested healthy people, as GenomeWeb has reported. In particular, the company said it would provide customers with risk information for nearly 50 conditions as well as pharmacogenomics findings.
Currently, the service is available at certain clinics affiliated with St. Vincent's Hospital and runs AUS$6,400 (US$5,141), according to AFR. But it adds that the service will soon be rolling out to a network of general practitioners, which Genome.One chief executive Marcel Dinger says will help reduce the cost of the service.
"We'll start with a small number of GPs to pilot it and see how it goes. We still need to provide genetic counseling, so there is a workforce implication in terms of how fast it can be scaled," he adds.