LifeMap Sciences, Inc., a subsidiary of BioTime, Inc. BTX,
announced today a collaborative partnership and value-added reseller
agreement with Appistry, Inc., which provides big-data computing that
supports life-science and medical analytics at hospitals and medical
research centers and organizations. The intent of the partnership is to
integrate LifeMap's GeneCards(R) and MalaCards databases of human genes and
diseases into the DNA and RNA sequence analysis outputs and reports produced
by Appistry's leading-edge Ayrris(TM) computing environment. Appistry will
market reports that include the GeneCards(R) and MalaCards data to
clinicians and researchers under a revenue share arrangement with LifeMap,
based on sales of such reports.
Current U.S. annual spending on genetic testing and molecular diagnostics
according to a UnitedHealthcare 2012 report is at least $3-$4 billion annually. Today's healthcare eco-system
is increasingly dependent on genetic testing and molecular diagnostics,
particularly as the advent of next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies
have enabled a substantial reduction in the costs associated with gene
sequencing, enabling rapid sequencing of the DNA of individual patients.
Labs and hospitals cite analysis of NGS data as a primary bottleneck to
leveraging genetic information to better diagnose disease, assess treatment
options, and develop the targeted therapies that will enable personalized
medicine, an expanding field in which medical decisions, practices, and
therapeutic products are being tailored to the individual patient based on
their own genes.
Appistry's Ayrris computing environment supports the rapid assembly of
complex, data-intensive analytics that run a customer's choice of
open-source, commercial, and proprietary tools at scale without requiring
specialized expertise in high-performance computing or a complex software
development effort. Under the partnership, Appistry will deliver access to
data from LifeMap's GeneCards(R) and MalaCards databases within the pipeline
results and personalized medicine reports provided by its Ayrris(TM) life
science solutions and services. GeneCards(R) , the human gene compendium,
provides concise genomic information on all known and predicted human genes,
including gene-disease associations, variants and single nucleotide
polymorphisms, gene function and other fields of interest. MalaCards, the
human disease database, contains information relating to a wide array of
human diseases and the roles of genes in disease processes. LifeMap Sciences
holds the exclusive worldwide license to market GeneCards(R) and MalaCards
from Yeda Research and Development Company Ltd., the commercial arm of the
Weizmann Institute of Science.
"One of the biggest limitations on using next-generation sequencing in
clinical settings is the ability to effectively translate raw sequence data
into medically meaningful results," said Kevin Haar, CEO of Appistry. "To
realize the promise of personalized medicine, organizations need to scale
their bioinformatics pipelines to handle thousands of patient cases, while
also providing information physicians can act on. Our partnership with
LifeMap enables medical researchers to extend their analytic processes to
deliver a better understanding of the biological pathways and disease states
associated with genetic samples."
"We expect LifeMap Sciences to be the leading source of gene and disease
information for clinicians and patients in the rapidly growing fields of
molecular diagnostics, prevention and personalized medicine," said David
Warshawsky, Ph.D., CEO of LifeMap. "The combination of GeneCards(R) and
MalaCards comprehensive gene and disease related knowledge with the
end-to-end NGS analysis workflow offered by Appistry will greatly enhance
the potential for improved diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of
devastating conditions."
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