Company type | Public |
---|---|
Nasdaq: SOPH | |
Industry | Software Cloud computing |
Founded | 2011 |
Founders |
|
Headquarters | |
Key people | |
Services | Sophia DDM Platform |
Number of employees | 400+ |
Website | sophiagenetics |
Sophia Genetics SA is a data-driven medicine software company with headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland and Boston, Massachusetts. [2] [3] [4] [5] It provides genomic and radiomic analysis for hospitals, laboratories, and biopharma institutions. [6] [7]
Sophia Genetics was co-founded by Jurgi Camblong, Pierre Hutter, and Lars Steinmetz in 2011 as a start-up at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL). It began as a research tool for hospitals and federally regulated health care labs, and then expanded to biopharma institutions. [8]
In 2014, the company introduced an analytical software platform, the Sophia DDM Platform (Data-Driven Medicine), [9] [10] which helps to interpret circulating tumor DNA and circulating tumour cells in blood, urine, cerebral spinal fluid and other liquid samples. [11] The platform is used for oncology, hereditary cancers, metabolic disorders, pediatrics, cardiology, and for rare disease research. [11]
In 2018, the company set up its first research and development center in France and made acquisition of a France-based molecular biology and genetic analytics software development company, Interactive Biosoftware. [12] [13] That same year, Sophia Genetics opened its U.S. headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. [14]
In August 2020, the company released a data analysis solution that was focused on predicting the disease evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. [15] Also in 2022, the firm began development of a new method for detecting extrachromosomal DNA through collaboration with startup firm Boundless Bio. [1]
In July 2021, Sophia Genetics went public with an IPO backed by J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Suisse. [16] [17]
In 2016, Sophia Genetics entered into a comarketing agreement with Illumina allowing the two companies to promote adoption of next- generation DNA sequencing. [18]
In 2019, Sophia Genetics formed partnerships with Integrated DNA Technologies and Paragon Genomics, next-generation sequencing (NGS) assay development company, to provide COVID-19 test kits [19] [20]
In 2021, the company partnered with MGI, a subsidiary of BGI Group, to enable their users to access the SOPHiA DDM Platform for data analysis and interpretation. [21] In March 2021, Sophia Genetics announced a long-term collaboration agreement with Hitachi. [22]
In 2022, the firm committed to a collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center to advance predictive tumor analysis and, more broadly, clinical decision support. [1]
Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of molecular biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dimensional structural configuration. In contrast to genetics, which refers to the study of individual genes and their roles in inheritance, genomics aims at the collective characterization and quantification of all of an organism's genes, their interrelations and influence on the organism. Genes may direct the production of proteins with the assistance of enzymes and messenger molecules. In turn, proteins make up body structures such as organs and tissues as well as control chemical reactions and carry signals between cells. Genomics also involves the sequencing and analysis of genomes through uses of high throughput DNA sequencing and bioinformatics to assemble and analyze the function and structure of entire genomes. Advances in genomics have triggered a revolution in discovery-based research and systems biology to facilitate understanding of even the most complex biological systems such as the brain.
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John Quackenbush is an American computational biologist and genome scientist. He is a professor of biostatistics and computational biology and a professor of cancer biology at the Dana–Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI), as well as the director of its Center for Cancer Computational Biology (CCCB). Quackenbush also holds an appointment as a professor of computational biology and bioinformatics in the Department of Biostatistics at the Harvard School of Public Health.
The $1,000 genome refers to an era of predictive and personalized medicine during which the cost of fully sequencing an individual's genome (WGS) is roughly one thousand USD. It is also the title of a book by British science writer and founding editor of Nature Genetics, Kevin Davies. By late 2015, the cost to generate a high-quality "draft" whole human genome sequence was just below $1,500.
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Macrogen, Inc. is a South Korean public biotechnology company. The company's headquarters are located in Seoul. The company was founded in 1997 by Jeong-sun Seo, a professor at Seoul National University. It was venture capital-backed until its initial public offering (IPO) and subsequent listing on the KOSDAQ market in 2000, making it the first Korean biotechnology firm to raise funds through an IPO. The company announced plans in 2010 to map the "Korean genome" based on the notion that United States-backed genome mapping efforts up to that time were representative of the "Caucasian genome" rather than the "Human genome" as claimed. By 2015, the company was described by one news outlet as "a global leader in personalized genomic medicine".
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