By Amina Niasse
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Medical data research company Truveta said on Monday that Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Illumina and 17 U.S. health systems will take a $320 million stake in the company as part of a deal to build the world’s largest genetic database.
The deal values privately held Truveta at more than $1 billion, it said. Biotechnology company Regeneron pledged to put in $120 million and genetic sequencing company Illumina is investing $20 million.
The rest will come from U.S. health systems including New York-based Northwell Health, multi-state non-profit Trinity Health and Advocate Health, based in Chicago.
The project aims to accumulate 10 million genomic sequences relatively quickly, a move the parties said would accelerate drug discovery and transform patient care.
“This is knowledge we just don’t have,” said Truveta CEO Terry Myerson. “We don’t know today why some people get lung cancer and have never smoked. We spend billions of dollars a year in colonoscopies on people that will never get colon cancer.”
Genetic sequencing can help indicate patient predispositions for diseases like Alzheimer’s and sickle cell, aiding in drug development, or identify mutations associated with cancer or other diseases that a particular drug may target effectively.
“The scale and diversity of the Truveta Genome Project will enable us to explore the complex interplay between genetics and health in unprecedented detail,” Regeneron executive Aris Baras, said in a press release.
During routine lab tests, the project’s healthcare partners will ask patients to consent to analysis of their leftover specimens and link them to anonymous medical records. Regeneron will sequence the genomes.
The genetic data will then be stored with Truveta Data to support biological analysis.
Myerson expects the project to eventually have more patient diversity than the two largest existing genetic databases, the U.S. National Institutes of Health’s All of Us Research Program and the UK Biobank. Those databases represent 850,000 and 500,000 participants, respectively, according to their websites.
When entities pay Truveta to use its anonymous patient data, the company will reimburse providers. “That reimbursement provides an economic incentive for them to make the project work,” the CEO said.
Technology giant and previous Truveta investor Microsoft will provide the project with cloud storage through its Azure software, according to the release.
(Reporting by Amina Niasse; Editing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)
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