One week after news came that Silicon Valley Biosystems (SV Bio) was launched to help provide clinical interpretation of comprehensive genomics data at the point of care, the firm is already teaming up with the Mayo Clinic. The partners are forging a strategic collaboration for whole genome diagnostics at the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine and at Mayo Medical Laboratories. SV Bio will provide clinical genome interpretation services and clinical decision support interfaces to Mayo Clinic, and Mayo’s Center for Individualized Medicine will contribute clinical and laboratory expertise and support.
“Every human disease has a genetic component but, to date, medical providers have not been able to fully utilize this information to improve clinical outcomes,” says Dietrich Stephan, Ph.D., founder, president, and CEO of SV Bio. “With the SV Bio platform, we’ve made the translation to a single assay—a full human genome—with the diagnostics rapidly and precisely happening in silico.”
SV Bio says its process is fully computerized and automated and reduces the time needed for clinically actionable genome interpretation from several weeks to a few minutes and puts the results in the provider’s hands at the point of care. Mayo Medical Laboratories and SV Bio will work together to refine approaches to clinical genome interpretation.
“We are now able to take data from any next-generation sequencer and determine with clinical grade sensitivity and specificity which variants within a patient’s DNA sequence are influencing a disease or condition, and rapidly provide a report for the clinician that is clear and actionable,” Dr. Stephan says. “This level of speed, accuracy, and integration into the clinical work flow is not only a first for molecular testing, but also a sea change in the application of next-generation sequencing with no compromise of quality in clinical diagnostics.”
