Fall New Products, News From DNAnexus, Immunai, Thermo Fisher, More
November, 10, 2020 | New products, collaborations and deployments from the past two months from Quantum, Mission Bio, Seqster, Takeda, Optibrium, the Pistoia Alliance, Caris Life Sciences, Genomenon, and more.
Quantum has expanded its solutions portfolio to include Quantum ATFS, a next generation software platform with integrated data classification; Quantum StorNext 7 File System, the latest version of Quantum’s high-performance file system; and Quantum ActiveScale Object Storage, a smaller capacity three node object storage system. Press release.
Mission Bio launched a complete Tapestri Single-cell Multi-omics Solution, the most comprehensive single-cell multi-omics platform on the market. With a new instrument, single-cell multi-omics reagent kits, TotalSeq-D antibody content from BioLegend, and visualization software, the complete package provides layered insight into multiple analytes across all blood cancers, reducing drug development time and cost by at least half. The company is partnering with BioLegend, a global leader and provider of world-class, cutting-edge antibodies and reagents, to develop antibody panels for single-cell protein detection with the new device. The new Tapestri instrument uniquely enables a simpler workflow integrating both genotype and phenotype data for faster time-to-data. The updated Tapestri Pipeline and Insights software provides publication-ready visualization tools that make it easier to understand data. Press release.
The Muscular Dystrophy Association (MDA) has launched the neuroMuscular ObserVational Research (MOVR) Visualization and Reporting Platform (VRP). The new platform represents a monumental leap in advancing neuromuscular disease research and improving patient care. MDA partnered with DNAnexus, the leading cloud-based SaaS company serving the life science community, to unleash the power of its MOVR Data Hub and develop the MOVR VRP to advance drug discovery and development. MDA partnered with DNAnexus to transform raw MOVR data and incorporate it into the MOVR VRP where MDA Care Center clinicians and researchers can analyze and visualize data across multiple Care Center sites in order to better understand disease progression and compare outcomes across therapeutic categories. The security, compliance and collaboration components of the platform will make MOVR data increasingly accessible to the wider neuromuscular clinical and research communities. Press release.
Seqster and Takeda announced an extended agreement to improve patient outcomes through better access and understanding of patient-level data. Seqster will provide Takeda with instant access to its secure platform to visualize longitudinal electronic health records (EHRs), genomic profiles (DNA), and wearable/fitness data across health systems for individual patients. Seqster's technology supports real-time, real-world data and targeted patient engagement, which includes FDA 21 CFR Part 11 compliance, and the decision support system and research platform dramatically reduces the time for consenting and onboarding patient data during clinical trials. This enhances patient engagement and compliance through a single-entry point for EHRs and integrates with partners enterprise data backbones. Press release.
Optibrium has launched Cerella, an AI software platform for drug discovery that delivers active learning using advanced deep learning methods. Cerella leverages the unique Alchemite algorithm, which has been demonstrated to extract additional value from drug discovery data to make more accurate predictions, prioritize experimental efforts and increase confidence in decisions. Cerella’s novel architecture combines on-premises deployment with cloud computing, providing both data security and scalability. The most sensitive information is processed on-premises, and the cloud-based components work only with encrypted and anonymized data, enabling scaling from individual project datasets to corporate compound repositories containing millions of compounds. By connecting directly with a corporate compound database, Cerella automatically updates models using the latest data to ensure that the predictions and analyses are always based on the latest information. Cerella is powered by Alchemite, a deep learning method developed by Optibrium’s technology partner Intellegens Limited. The Cerella software is the newest member of Optibrium’s Augmented Chemistry platform. This brings sophisticated AI technologies that continuously learn from all available data to supplement expert scientists’ experience and skills. Press release.
Immunai is collaborating with Baylor College of Medicine to bring more targeted and effective cancer therapies to market. Leveraging Immunai’s single-cell technology and artificial intelligence, Baylor and Immunai will analyze natural killer T (NKT) cells and genetically engineer them into immunotherapies that target a variety of cancers, including solid tumors. Natural killer T (NKT) cells, on the other hand, are much rarer and have potent anti-cancer properties for tumors and can be developed as immunotherapy, as published by researchers at Immunai and Baylor in Nature Medicine (DOI: 10.1038/s41591-020-1074-2). Now, Baylor is entering a formal collaboration agreement with Immunai to continue their work on NKT cells and explore their potential as immunotherapy for a multitude of other cancers. Press release.
CAS and the Pistoia Alliance have launched a new Pistoia Alliance Chemical Safety Library platform, an enhancement of the resource originally launched by the Pistoia Alliance as a prototype in 2017. This resource aims to mitigate the serious risks researchers working with potentially hazardous chemicals face due to unanticipated chemical reaction outcomes by enabling scientists to access and share hazardous reaction information drawn from real-life laboratory experiences. The new open access platform, developed and hosted by CAS, supports industry efforts to increase the safety of workers in the lab by facilitating data sharing across the global chemical enterprise. Press release.
Astellas Pharma, through a U.S. subsidiary, and iota Bioscience have entered into a merger agreement pursuant to which Astellas will acquire iota. Astellas and iota previously entered into a Research and Development Agreement in August 2019 to jointly conduct research and development activities associated with iota’s ultrasonic-powered bioelectronic devices, also known as “neural dust”, in a number of indications. In carrying out the activities contemplated under the R&D Agreement, the companies have evaluated detailed specifications for implantable medical devices focused on multiple diseases with high unmet medical needs. Through the acquisition of iota, Astellas will acquire iota’s unique bioelectronics technology and world-class talent. Press release.
Thermo Fisher Scientific has launched its Gibco CTS Rotea Counterflow Centrifugation System, a modular, closed cell therapy processing system that enables scalable, cost-effective cell therapy development and manufacturing. The CTS Rotea system is the first Gibco instrument for cell therapy processing applications and facilitates workflows from research through GMP clinical development and commercial manufacturing. Press release.
Caris Life Sciences has launched CODEai (Comprehensive Oncology Data Explorer), using an advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) backbone. CODEai is a real-world clinico-genomic data platform that integrates Caris’ extensive catalog of molecular data with cancer treatment information and clinical outcomes data for over 215,000 patients covering over 1,000,000 data points per patient. Integrating Caris’ database of profiled patient cases with associated treatments and outcomes, CODEai allows for customized cohort analysis based on a variety of search queries that include Caris’ industry-leading molecular profiling results, demographic data, diagnostic data, and treatment and survival data. CODEai provides accurate data visualization and advanced predictive analytics to deliver clinicians, researchers and scientists with personalized and precise cancer insights that can lead to better understanding of how different cancers respond to treatments. Press release.
Dyno Therapeutics is collaborating with Roche to apply Dyno’s CapsidMap platform for the development of next-generation adeno-associated virus (AAV) vectors for gene therapies for central nervous system (CNS) diseases and liver-directed therapies for the portfolio of both Roche and Spark Therapeutics. Under the terms of the agreement, Dyno will be responsible for the design of novel AAV capsids with improved functional properties for gene therapy, while Roche and Spark Therapeutics will be responsible for conducting preclinical, clinical and commercialization activities for gene therapy product candidates using the novel capsids. Dyno will receive an undisclosed upfront payment and if successful, is eligible to receive additional payments during the research phase of the collaboration as well as clinical and sales milestone payments and royalties for any resulting products. The aggregate potential value of future milestone payments to Dyno may exceed $1.8 billion. Press release.
The Rady Children’s Institute for Genomic Medicine and Genomenon have announced a strategic collaboration to accelerate the diagnosis of critically-ill newborns with rare genetic disorders. The collaboration combines the Institute’s genomic research expertise with Genomenon’s Mastermind Genomic Search Engine to advance precision medicine for infants in an intensive care setting. Under the collaboration, the use of Mastermind has become part of RCIGM’s standard analysis and interpretation workflow. The use of Mastermind has enhanced RCIGM’s rapid Whole Genome Sequencing (rWGS) workflow by helping to identify and curate diagnostic variants to help deliver precision medicine genomic results in a matter of days. Press release.
Genomenon also announced the latest release of the Mastermind Genomic Search Engine including Copy Number Variation (CNV) search. The new feature allows users to identify CNV citations from full-text articles no matter how authors have described them, and to discover how they are associated with clinical diseases and phenotypes. Press release.
The first biobank in Australia aiming to improve research and treatments into rare genetic diseases caused by changes to genes on chromosome 15, including Prader-Willi Syndrome and Angelman Syndrome, will be established at the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI). Prader-Willi Syndrome (PWS) and Angelman Syndrome (AS) are considered to be rare diseases found 1 in 15,000 in the general population. PWS is a leading cause of life-threatening obesity, while AS is associated with severe seizures that can be lethal. MCRI researchers and their national collaborators will recruit 100 people over three years with PWS and AS and collect biological samples from different tissues such as blood and skin cells, which will be linked to family/clinical histories, and perform detailed clinical and psychological assessments. Press release.
Genuity Science and Ionis Pharmaceuticals now announced a broad, multi-year collaboration aimed at accelerating the discovery and development of innovative therapeutics across a range of up to 20 diseases. Genuity Science’s approach combines high-quality, whole-genome sequence and deep phenotype data resulting in better definition of the underlying disease mechanisms. This approach, when coupled with Ionis’ proprietary antisense technology, has the potential to significantly expedite the drug development process through a more direct translation of targets into therapeutics. Under terms of the multi-year collaboration, Genuity Science will receive a combination of upfront payments and development milestones, plus product royalties. Press release.
KenSci has launched their AI Platform for Digital Health that helps healthcare organizations accelerate their journey from business intelligence (BI) to AI to return on investment (ROI). The re-imagined AI platform extends KenSci's runtime engine with BI-AI development capabilities and the latest predictive analytics technology that enables health organizations to develop BI and AI-based workloads in an easy and agile way. Built specifically for healthcare, KenSci's AI Platform for Digital Health is an interpretable, integrated, and simplified data platform which powers operational and clinical workflows with AI based insights. The KenSci solution enables users to rapidly build their own customized AI-enabled use cases or deploy KenSci solutions built into the platform. Press release.
Digital Science has partnered with Google Cloud to remove barriers to data access, analysis and visualization for organizations across the research and innovation ecosystem. With its new integration, the Dimensions database is now available to be analyzed on BigQuery, Google Cloud’s serverless, highly scalable and secure multi-cloud data warehouse. Dimensions provides a comprehensive view of the research and innovation landscape. Updated daily, it currently contains 112m publications linked to 1.3bn citations, 5.5m grants worth $1.7 trillion in funding, 41m patents, 600k clinical trials, over 120m Altmetric data points. BigQuery provides companies with a modern, serverless, and highly scalable data warehouse. Through the integration with Dimensions, it gives these joint users an unprecedented flexibility to access the data in Dimensions, but also allows anyone in the research world to connect external datasets to Dimensions privately and securely. These datasets could be an organization’s own private data, or important scientific databases such as ChEMBL. Press release.
LC-SCRUM-Asia, a leading cancer genomic screening program, has selected Thermo Fisher Scientific's Ion Torrent Genexus System and Oncomine Precision Assay, a pan-cancer panel, to advance precision medicine in Asia. The solutions will be used in two prospective, observational projects to support the development of future therapeutics and diagnostics for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Press release.
Lantern Pharma has announced a collaboration and research agreement with Fox Chase Cancer Center for the further development of Lantern's LP-184 in pancreatic cancer. The Fox Chase collaboration will focus on advancing the targeted use of LP-184 in molecularly-defined sub-types of pancreatic cancer. The goal of the collaboration is to create a more biologically relevant and robust gene signature in preparation for future clinical trials, enabling pancreatic cancer patients to potentially benefit from a more effective and personalized cancer therapy. Press release.
Panalgo has launched its new Data Science module for Instant Health Data (IHD), which allows data scientists and researchers to leverage machine-learning to uncover novel insights from the growing volume of healthcare data. Panalgo’s flagship IHD Analytics software supports the rapid analysis of a wide range of healthcare data sources, including administrative claims, electronic health records, registry data and more. The new IHD Data Science module is fully integrated with IHD Analytics, and allows for analysis of large, complex healthcare datasets using a wide variety of machine-learning techniques. The IHD Data Science module provides an environment to easily train, validate and test models against multiple datasets. Press release.
Insilico Medicine announces the official release of Pandomics, a part of the Pharma.ai AI platform designed to empower pharmaceutical target and drug discovery pipelines. Research biologists and clinicians can use Pandomics to perform OMICS data analytics and interpretation without requiring any prior knowledge of computational biology or bioinformatics. Additionally, drug target identification and biomarker development specialists can generate powerful hypotheses and assess repositioning strategies by harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Press release.
Daniel Meyer has joined CellChorus as CEO. CellChorus applies artificial intelligence to visually evaluate how thousands of individual cells perform over time. Mr. Meyer was the Chief Operating Officer and a board member of Genospace, an information platform for applied molecular and precision medicine, until its acquisition by HCA Healthcare. He was also a member of the venture capital investment teams at Arboretum Ventures and PJC.vc, where he covered investments in life science research products, medical devices, and digital health. Mr. Meyer holds a B.A. in mathematics and economics from Middlebury College and an M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. Press release.
Proscia has introduced the third generation of its Concentriq platform to help life sciences organizations accelerate the lengthy drug development process. This release includes features and enhancements that centralize pathology operations across the enterprise, bringing together multi-site teams, data, and third-party applications to unlock new insights that advance groundbreaking discoveries. Press release.
Thermo Fisher Scientific announced new collaborations of the Thermo Fisher Precision Medicine Science Center (PMSC) with AstraZeneca and the University of Nebraska Medical Center as part of its ongoing development of innovative solutions for unmet needs in clinical biomarker discovery. Ongoing and planned studies with both AstraZeneca and the University of Nebraska Medical Center will utilize standardized plasma protein profiling workflows, including Thermo Fisher’s newly developed ultra-high throughput plasma protein profiling (uHTPPP) workflow, for biomarker discovery, for a range of conditions. The standardized workflows consist of automated sample preparation for untargeted and targeted methods in combination with the Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 480 and Thermo Scientific Orbitrap Exploris 240 mass spectrometers. Press release.
Samsung Medison and Intel are collaborating on new smart workflow solutions to improve obstetric measurements that contribute to maternal and fetal safety and can help save lives. Using an Intel Core i3 processor, the Intel Distribution of OpenVINO toolkit and OpenCV library, Samsung Medison’s BiometryAssist automates and simplifies fetal measurements, while LaborAssist automatically estimates the fetal angle of progression (AoP) during labor for a complete understanding of a patient’s birthing progress, without the need for invasive digital vaginal exams. Press release.
Dotmatics has announced eln.online, a quick start version of its Electronic Laboratory Notebook (ELN). Designed specifically to meet the needs of research organizations at an early stage in their development, eln.online is a new implementation of the company’s existing ELN Studies Notebook and adds to Dotmatics’ established portfolio of cloud-based scientific software solutions. eln.online enables the search and capture of a wide variety of experimental data in a secure, cloud-based notebook, thereby facilitating effective collaboration between multiple scientists within or between organizations. It also ensures that organizations secure and protect their IP from an early stage, which is essential for future licensing, partnering and M&A plans. As an efficient alternative to spreadsheets, eln.online provides a standard template to capture an unlimited amount of diverse discovery experiments, as well as an additional template designed specifically for medicinal and synthetic chemistry projects. Press release.
DiaSorin and MeMed have created a strategic partnership to accelerate the deployment of a novel, host-protein signature-based assay. Under the terms of the agreement, DiaSorin has obtained the rights to commercialize the proprietary MeMed BV test on its LIAISONÒ family of analyzers and, through this partnership, DiaSorin and MeMed will make the MeMed BV test available on over 5,000 LIAISONÒ XL and LIAISONÒ XS platforms installed worldwide. MeMed BV integrates machine learning with measurements of three key host-immune proteins: tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), interferon gamma induced protein-10 (IP-10), and C-reactive protein (CRP). The MeMed solution enables physicians to differentiate accurately between bacterial and viral infections, thus supporting fast and better-informed treatment and patient management decisions. Press release.
Professor Sir Marc Feldmann and Dr. H. Michael Shepard are pleased to announce the formal launch of Enosi Life Sciences (Enosi), a company generating industry-leading scientific solutions to provide improved therapeutic approaches for autoimmune diseases and cancer. Feldmann and Shepard have developed some of the most successful and profitable therapeutics available today and are recognized pioneers in the therapeutic antibody field, receiving multiple accolades including the most prestigious honor in U.S. medicine: The Albert Lasker award.
These experts will combine their talents, networks and experience to address the growing global health challenges of autoimmune diseases, cancer and acute inflammatory conditions. Enosi will initially develop a series of therapeutics for enhanced treatment of autoimmune diseases. The initial product candidates are: EN1001: A TNF Receptor 1 binding protein that inhibits the inflammatory TNFR1 without affecting the anti-inflammatory TNF Receptor 2’s healing capabilities; and EN2001: A first-in-class therapy that complements all current anti-TNF drugs by targeting the co-driver of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). This multi-specific antibody receptor fusion protein traps inflammatory growth factors that are also important in cancer. Enosi’s EN1001 and EN2001 solutions will precisely target and inhibit only TNFR1 and the co-driver of RA, bringing a more effective and focused treatment to the market. Press release.