Contribution to Precision Medicine: Exploring the List of Top Companies
The Precision Medicine Initiative describes precision medicine as an emerging approach for disease treatment and prevention that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle of each individual. This allows doctors to select treatments based on the disease’s genetic understanding of a patient. While the concept may sound new, it has been in use for quite a time now: before blood donations, transfusion patients are matched with their donors according to their blood type. Thanks to rapid advancements in genetics, an abundance of health data at present, it is easy to design personalized patient care. Also, since the first human genome sequencing in 2001, the technology has become much cheaper, i.e., from the coat of US$3 billion then to approx. US$1000 now.
The most common adopter of this technology is the oncology or cancer treatment department. In this field, once genetic abnormalities are identified in a patient through cytogenetics and sequencing, appropriate therapy can be determined that exploits this abnormality thought to be driving cancer growth. One of the best success stories for oncology precision medicine was the discovery of the genetic abnormality, Bcr-Abl translocation, where pieces of chromosome 9 and 22 break off to form a fused Bcr-Abl gene. The detection of this abnormality, a common feature in chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) patients, has revolutionized treatment for this patient population and has led to a 10-year overall survival rate of 83%. It is believed that this technology can help find a cure for Alzheimer’s disease and pulmonary diseases soon.
Following is a list of companies whose work and contributions towards precision medicine, earned them a tag of an innovator in this niche.
2bPrecise
Headquarters: Pennsylvania
Founded: 2015
It is a software company, which applies organizational policies and governance to genetic and genomic lab-ordering processes. Pharmacogenomics and precision oncology are the two critical working sectors of the company. In precision oncology, the company discovers high-risk cancer patients and identifies treatment based on tumor biomarkers. The companies which use its platform work on vast amounts of the data required then simplifies, condenses, and extracts it. The 2bPrecise platform integrates molecular test results with the patient’s clinical record in the EHR and finds applications in maternal/fetal medicine, oncology, behavioral health, cardiology, and pediatrics.
OneOme
Headquarters: Minneapolis.
Founded: 2013.
It offers healthcare organizations, providers, and payers pharmacogenomic testing and services, featuring the HIPAA-compliant RightMed Solution—a suite of products and services to help users create value-driven, patient-centric pharmacogenomics programs. The company’s RightMed Test analyzes 27 genes from each patient to offer credible, scientific evidence that can help determine how the patient may respond to the many available medications used to treat psychiatric conditions, cancer, pain, and more. This polypharmacy approach to pharmacogenomics sets OneOme apart and brings value by matching health systems’ diverse specialty needs while also empowering clinicians to prescribe with more confidence.
TIGAR Health- IR2Dx
Headquarters: Moraga, California
Founded: 2008
This company enables doctors who treat Type 2 diabetes patients to optimize their treatment protocol, providing genuinely personalized diabetes therapy. It has developed a break-through decision support capability, using an analytical reporting system. This is based on analyzing the results from a panel of biomarkers selected from numerous clinical trials, which are vital in measuring metabolic control, which is linked with an extensive anti-diabetic drug response database. This clinical decision support is much more sophisticated than monitoring a patient’s HbA1c and fasting glucose levels since TIGAR™ addresses the underlying disease while simultaneously improving glucose control. Through improved patient health, cost savings are significant and immediate, achieved through reduced medical events beginning in the first year of optimal treatment, and increased even more over time through reduced complications. It eliminates the complexity in choosing the right drugs by removing the trial and error method used today.
Kailos Genetics
Headquarters: Huntsville, Alabama
Founded: 2010
This firm has an advanced technology, TargetRich™, that combines two discrete targeting steps and enzymatic degradation to capture difficult to design regions efficiently. This enables Kailos analysts to separate genes of interest from unimportant background DNA quickly. It allows users to focus sequencer capacity on the areas of interest. Kailos Genetics provides consumers access to affordable physician-ordered genetic tests. The company’s mission is to help people take control of their health and make more informed decisions. One can take the Kailos test, which is a readily available genetic test catered to one’s lifestyle.
Synapse Inc.
Headquarter: California
Founded: 2008
This company offers various cloud-based platforms and data sharing networks for delivering care through precision medicine for cancer patients. The company is engaged in gathering various healthcare clinical treatments, data outcome systems, and streamlining into a unified ecosystem to serve healthcare providers offering oncology treatments. The company serves healthcare executives, healthcare teams, and researchers to support data-driven decision-making across the precision medicine program or personalized care program. By offering solutions for health systems and life sciences, the company integrates patients’ clinical, pathology, radiology, treatment, lab results, and other information in a central data store in order to provide a single-point access. The company has its geographic presence across the U.S., South Korea, and Japan.
Karius
Headquarter: Redwood City, California
Founded: 2014
This company diagnoses infectious diseases by identifying the precise pathogens infecting patients via a non-invasive blood test based on next-generation sequencing of microbial cell-free DNA. The Karius Test identifies and quantifies more than 1,000 clinically relevant pathogens, including bacteria, DNA viruses, fungi, and parasites. It enables clinicians to diagnose infections more accurately, offers a higher diagnostic yield, and a faster time-to-diagnosis than conventional tests, with the potential to eliminate invasive diagnostic procedures.
Astarte Medical
Headquarters: Pennsylvania
Founded: 2016
It is the only precision medicine company using software and predictive analytics to improve outcomes during the first 1,000 days of life, with an initial focus on preterm infants. NICUtrition™ by Astarte Medical supports feeding protocols, practice, and decision-making in the neonatal ICU with a suite of digital tools and diagnostics designed to standardize feeding, optimize nutrition and quantify gut health. Astarte Medical’s NICUtrition Suite is the first data-driven outcomes solution to address and automate the core challenges in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) related to enteral feeding, protocols, and compliance. In addition to streamlining workflows for clinical staff, the NICUtrition Suite is the first technology to enable hospitals to benchmark their protocol compliance and use data on a more granular level to refine protocols, which is critical to optimizing outcomes continuously.
Fabric Genomics, INC.
Headquarter: California
Founded: 2009
Using A.I. approach, is engaged in making genomics-driven precision medicine. The company provides clinical-decision support software that enables clinical labs, hospital systems, and country-sequencing programs to gain actionable genomic insights, resulting in faster and more accurate diagnoses and reduced turnaround time. Fabric’s end-to-end genomic analysis platform incorporates proven A.I. algorithms, and has applications in both hereditary disease and oncology. The company’s Fabric Enterprise Platform has applications in diagnostic odyssey, rapid whole-genome in sequencing, hereditary diseases, and oncology. The prominent customers to which the company sells its software are commercial clinical laboratories, hospital core laboratories, country sequencing programs, and research institutions.