Genome sequencing business Ultima Genomics has come out of stealth and declared $600 million in funding. Started in 2016 by its Israeli CEO Gilad Almogy, the business has 350 personnel such as 50 in Israel at progress facilities in Rehovot and Hod Hasharon, and remarkably has managed to reduce any leaks of data from its employees, buyers and improvement facilities.

The corporation has now discovered that it has designed a sequencing machine, which it claims, backed up by investigate established to be released in primary scientific periodicals, makes it possible for genome sequencing for $100, in contrast with the $500-600 it costs applying its rival Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN). In addition, Ultima Genomics claims that its genomic sequencing is speedier and deeper – in other words and phrases, it presents additional details about the genome, more quickly.

The benefits of these enhancements, which are authorized via patents that the company has not however unveiled, are generally in two instructions. Via this technological know-how, the firm estimates and hopes, it will be possible to reach genome sequencing even down to solitary cells, and therefore diagnose health problems even before than at existing, generally cancer. In addition, sequencing that is cheaper, quicker and richer in information and facts, will let a great deal more quickly progress in projects that evaluate the genetics of the real morbidity of large numbers of persons, in purchase to map the genes associated in a variety of health conditions.

Sources at Ultima Genomics say that the reason for the secrecy about the several years was the motivation to get to the stage exactly where the enterprise could verify its merchandise, before producing any bulletins. The company also desired not to stir up its rivals, mostly Illumina.

Ultima Genomics CEO and founder Gilad Almogy is a graduate of the IDF’s Talpiot science and management plan. Almogy is these days resident in the US. He was a senior vice president at Utilized Products right before founding photo voltaic power business Cogenra Solar in 2009, which was acquired by SunPower in 2015. In late 2016, Almogy launched Ultima.

Almogy said, “DNA is nature’s storage media and the instruction established for each individual dwelling organism, yet with recent technologies, we are not able to obtain that information and facts at the scale desired to definitely understand complex biology. Our architecture is meant for radical scaling, and the $100 genome is simply the 1st instance of what it can produce. We are committed to repeatedly travel down the expense of genomic info until finally it is routinely used in every single aspect of the healthcare process.”




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Ultima Genomics CSO Doron Lipson extra, “Researchers and clinicians continually make tradeoffs in between the breadth, depth, and frequency of genomic facts they obtain. By conquering the limits of standard following-technology sequencing technologies, researchers can now layout experiments and scientific assays that had been beforehand extremely hard.”

One particular of the to start with traders in Ultima Genomics was Israeli billionaire and Check out Point founder Marius Nacht, who is also a graduate of the IDF’s Talpiot software. Nqcht established the aMoon healthtech and lifetime science financial commitment fund, at first investing his have property ahead of turning out to be an independent fund, which in recent many years raised a $750 million expansion fund. aMoon has also invested in Ultima Genomics.

Other investors in Ultima Genomics consist of D1 Money, Andreessen Horowitz, Standard Atlantic, Khosla Ventures, Lightspeed, Playground World-wide, and Founders Fund.

Complete disclosure: Marius Nacht is the previous lifestyle associate of Anat Agmon, part of the managing shareholders in “Globes.” They are associated in a particular and economic dispute

Revealed by Globes, Israel business information – en.globes.co.il – on June 2, 2022.

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd., 2022.


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