Celemics and Strand Life Sciences Highlight their Continued Collaboration
to Enhance NGS Analysis with Integrated Platform

Celemics (www.celemics.com) and Strand Life Sciences (us.strandls.com) are pleased to highlight their ongoing strategic partnership to enhance NGS analysis through an integrated platform. This collaboration continues to deliver high-quality, clinical-grade genomics reports, including assay-specific variant filters with a comprehensive sample-to-report solution.

The partnership integrates the Celemics’ NGS target enrichment kit and bioinformatics pipeline with Strand Life Sciences’ StrandOmics tertiary analysis platform, enabling a seamless and efficient sample-to-report solution. This ensures clinical-grade data compliance and guaranteed data residency for customers across Europe and Asia. In addition, In a move to expand its global footprint, Celemics recently opened offices in the United States to better serve its growing customer base, and Strand is eager to continue supporting its North American clients.

Over the past 2.5 years, Strand has analyzed and interpreted several clinical cases for Celemics, utilizing the Whole Exome Sequencing Test for rare diseases and panel-based tests such as the Hereditary Cancer Test and the OncoRisk Test for germline cancer while maintaining a turnaround time of three days. During this period, Strand’s expert variant scientists, experienced with the interpretation and review of over 30,000 variants, provided definitive variant-phenotype associations with supporting evidence, even in cases where relevant medical information was limited, thereby enriching this collaboration.

Dr. Hyoki Kim, Co-Founder and CEO of Celemics, stated,

“We are excited about this new partnership with Strand Life Sciences. Their expertise in engineering NGS systems and long track record with the instrument and diagnostic companies will be valuable in accelerating our path to market integration.“

Also, Strand Life Sciences CEO Dr. Ramesh Hariharan said,

“With our unique track record of running NGS labs as well as interpretation support for genetic tests, we are excited to partner with Celemics to help bring their cancer, inherited cancer, and rare disease panels to the market.”

Celemics, established in 2010, is a biotech company specializing in the development and supply of essential enzymes and reagents for NGS in oncology, inherited diseases, biopharma, virus research, and AgBio. In recent years, Celemics has focused on providing library preparation kits, magnetic beads, and target enrichment panels for various applications, including circulating tumor DNA and somatic cancer, TCR/BCR sequencing, whole exome sequencing, biopharma research, and pathogen surveillance. Celemics serves markets across the U.S., Europe, and Asia.

Strand Life Sciences, founded in 2000, is a multiomics research and diagnostics company that combines a long track record in bioinformatics with cutting-edge laboratory assays and a vast hospital partner network that enables omics-based biomarker discovery. In addition to targeted panel services, its customers benefit from a wide array of services, including variant curation, bioinformatics analysis, and software development support. Strand’s customers include global instrument, diagnostic and pharmaceutical companies.

This partnership continues to advance the capabilities of NGS analysis and variant interpretation while fostering clinical genomics

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KED Global

– DNA testing kit maker Celemics eyes foray into US, India
– It aims to turn a profit in 2025 with price and quality competitiveness

Celemics Inc., a South Korean diagnostic reagent producer, is gearing up for its foray into the US and India next year in its first step toward global expansion, its chief executive said. It is targeting the two markets with its flagship testing kit used to discover a genetic mutation that causes disease.“Nex year will be our first year of global expansion,” Celemics CEO Lee Yong-hoon told The Korea Economic Daily in a recent interview. Its targeted next-generation sequencing (NGS) kit will undergo testing under the US’ Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) regulations. Once the kit is certified by the US government agency in charge of clinical standard tests, expected by the first quarter of next year, it will kick off the NGS kit supply to labs in the US and India.

Celemics will differentiate itself from domestic and global rivals with its competitiveness in both price and quality. It offers the kits at prices 20-30% cheaper than its peers. It has already begun supply discussions with large labs. Founded in 2010, it recently opened a branch in Los Angeles and set up a subsidiary in Bengaluru, known as the Silicon Valley of India. The US and India are the world’s largest NGS markets. This year, orders for its NGS kits from India increased by 30%, compared to the year prior, Lee said. It began to supply the kits and its samples to three of India’s top five clinical labs.

Targeted next-generation sequencing kits are used to sequence a target gene to discover genetic mutations that give rise to disease. Lee said it has a competitive edge over domestic rival Angel Bio given that it directly sources materials used to produce NGS kits. Celemics supplies the materials to South Korea’s leading general hospitals such as Seoul National University Hospital and biotech firms such as GC Genome. It is one of the world’s six companies to produce NGS kit materials, including Illumina Inc., a US-based biotech company.

During COVID-19, it supplied testing kits to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency for studies on coronavirus genomes. That contributed substantially to its 2021 and 2022 sales growth in the 8-billion-won ($6 million) range versus 5.2 billion won in 2020. With export growth, Lee expects the company to turn a profit in 2025 after sharply reducing losses in 2024. Celemics is also developing liquid biopsy kits used to diagnose cancer using blood in collaboration with IMB DX Inc., in which it is the third-largest shareholder.

Write to Ye-Na Kim

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