Sophia Genetics Partners with Swift Biosciences

Sophia Genetics announces the launch of a new combined solution for molecular diagnostics in Europe, combining sampling processing with data analysis. In an initial partnership with Swift Biosciences, a U.S.-based company, Sophia Genetics is creating a foundation of strategic partners providing gene panels with Sophia’s genomic analysis platform, Sophia DDM™, offering hospitals and labs a streamlined solution for molecular diagnostics.

In the development of Sophia’s advanced machine-learning based technologies - Pepper™, Muskat™, and Moka™ - Sophia employed the data from thousands of clinical samples processed with multiple enrichment technologies and sequenced on the market leading next generation sequencing (NGS) platforms. By utilizing this rich data set coupled with Sophia’s machine learning algorithms, Sophia has been able to identify the different noise and biases that can occur in an NGS data set. The Sophia DDM™ platform allows robust and accurate variant calling coupled to powerful clinical annotations, which in turn allows clinicians utilizing Sophia DDM™ to provide more accurate patient diagnosis and subsequent tailored treatments.

With this new combined solution, Sophia offers hospitals and labs improved turnaround time for sample processing and a top analytical performance system through Sophia DDM™, the world's largest clinical genomics community for molecular diagnosis. Accel-Amplicon Panels from Swift Biosciences deliver a complete sample prep solution in a single kit with the fastest workflow available for amplicon based gene panels that work on the two major NGS platforms. The simple workflow reduces potential for sample processing errors and provides consistent results from a variety of sample types. The first combined solution offered by Sophia Genetics will be the Accel-Amplicon 56G Oncology Panel that provides analysis across 56 cancer related genes, using 10 ng of input from either FFPE or liquid biopsy samples, providing European pathology laboratories with a complete solution from clinical sample preparation to clinical reports. Several new custom amplicon panels will be made available for Sophia Genetics’ Sophia DDM™ platform through 2016. The combined benefits promise to accelerate access to personalised and precision medicine for thousands of patients in Europe.

As the initial company to partner with Sophia Genetics, Timothy Harkins PhD, CEO of Swift Biosciences, explained “The combination of Swift's amplicon products with Sophia DDMTM is simplifying the workflow in personalized medicine.  NGS has long provided the promise of transforming how molecular pathology can be used to the benefit of medicine, and this partnership helps eliminate many of the workflow and noise barriers that prevented the community from reaching this potential.  This is just the first step for our companies in a strategic partnership that will help lead and transform the industry.”

Jurgi Camblong, CEO and founder of Sophia Genetics added “Our new combined solution for molecular diagnostics will speed the adoption of DNA Next Generation Sequencing technologies in Europe. To start with, it will benefit the existing 120 hospital members of our clinical genomics community for molecular diagnosis. The process of genetic testing entails many steps that can introduce a lot of noise into the data, and we are thrilled to ease and improve this process to the benefit of patients.”

Already a global leader in data driven medicine, this new combined solution promises to provide Sophia Genetics with additional growth drivers moving forward, as more similar strategic partners are expected to join, and more hospital and labs to adopt DNA NGS smart solutions.