Lausanne, Switzerland – September 15, 2016 – Saphetor, the leading European company in genome-scale analysis based on next generation sequencing (NGS), announced today that it has signed an agreement with the Geneva University Hospitals (HUG) to supply its Division of Genetic Medicine, headed by Professor Stylianos E. Antonarakis, with comprehensive and accurate analysis of their NGS data. Prof. Antonarakis is also Director of the Department of Genetic Medicine and Development at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) Faculty of Medicine, Director of the iGE3 institute of Genetics and Genomics, and President of the Human Genome Organization. Under the agreement, Prof. Antonarakis’ team will apply Saphetor’s precision medicine platform for clinical use. HUG has chosen to install Saphetor’s software and data solution in-house.
Prof. Antonarakis’s team is recognized worldwide as one of the leading clinical research groups in genetic medicine. The integration of Saphetor’s cutting-edge NGS analysis capabilities into their daily clinical routine will allow his group to accelerate and expand its efforts in diagnosing and studying genetic diseases. As one of the largest academic hospitals in Switzerland, HUG is investing in scaling up its services in personalized medicine and make it accessible to all patients.
Prof. Antonarakis said: “In our Genome Clinic we handle an ever increasing number of cases that require processing of enormous amounts of high throughput sequencing data to discover pathogenic variants in hereditary disorders and cancer. Saphetor’s sophisticated algorithms mine billions of data points and present the result in an easy to navigate interface that assists us to reliably and accurately diagnose and treat patients.”
Andreas Massouras, CEO of Saphetor, said: “Prof. Antonarakis is without a doubt one of the foremost experts in genetic medicine, and has been making major contributions to its application in clinical practice. We are honored by his confidence in Saphetor’s ability to further the aims of the highly innovative Genome Clinic in diagnosing complex disorders and proposing novel treatment strategies to patients in Switzerland and abroad.”
Saphetor develops software and sophisticated analytical processes to identify genetic variants with greater accuracy and to give its clients access to seamlessly integrated data from a rapidly growing collection of genetic databases. To date, Saphetor has already aggregated more than 18 billion genetic variant annotations from a wide range of databases. Saphetor’s competitive advantage is its unique ability to combine data integration with annotation and interpretation in an interface that is intuitive and easy to navigate.
About Saphetor
Founded in 2014, Saphetor is a precision medicine company at the cutting edge of genome-scale analysis based on Next Generation Sequencing (NGS). Capitalizing on the emerging trend in NGS to use large “panels” of genes, exomes, or whole genomes, Saphetor’s suite of services offers researchers and clinicians intuitive, data-driven solutions to make faster, more accurate diagnoses and informed decisions for the selection of the best therapies, especially for cancer and difficult to diagnose conditions, such as rare diseases or cognitive impairment. For more information: www.saphetor.com
The HUG: Care, Teaching and Research
The Geneva University Hospitals (HUG), a reference academic institution in Switzerland and abroad, comprises eight public hospitals of Geneva with centers of excellence in hepato-biliary and pancreatic disease, cardiovascular disease, oncology, musculoskeletal and sports medicine, geriatrics, genetic medicine and vaccinology. With its 10,500 employees, HUG each year treats 60,000 hospitalized patients, handles 91,000 emergencies, 990,000 consultations or ambulatory patients, and 26,000 surgical procedures. More than 800 physicians, 3,000 interns and 150 apprentices work and perform their training here. The HUG is working closely with the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Geneva and the World Health Organization in various training and research projects. HUG has partnerships with CHUV, EPFL, CERN and other actors in the Lake Geneva Health Valley. The annual budget of HUG is 1.8 billion Swiss francs.