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MedGenome Acquires Lifecode Health

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – MedGenome said today that it has acquired Lifecode Health, a Foster City, California-based cancer molecular diagnostics company.

MedGenome, a Bangalore, India-based genomics diagnostics and research firm, said that the acquisition will give it access to Lifecode's 13,000-square-foot, CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited laboratory and enable it to expand its genomics services to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in the US.

Lifecode was originally launched in 2013 as Silicon Valley Biosystems. Last year, the company changed its name and also completed a $20.5 million Series A financing round. The company offers an NGS-based pan-cancer test and in 2013 struck up a collaboration with the Mayo Clinic to develop a clinical sequencing pipeline.

In a statement, MedGenome's CEO Sam Santhosh said that US biotech and pharmaceutical companies are already using its research services in areas such as cancer and immunotherapies, metabolic diseases, Parkinson's disease, kidney, liver, and ophthalmological diseases, diabetes, deafness, and aging, but that the acquisition would "allow us to grow our customer base even more aggressively in the US."

MedGenome said it has retained some "key employees" of Lifecode. Financial details and other terms were not disclosed.

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