PORTLAND, ME – December 17, 2024 – Ovation.io, Inc. an organization dedicated to building best in class multi-omics datasets, today announced a collaboration with Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN), a global leader in DNA sequencing and array-based technologies, that will work to accelerate advancements in precision medicine. The collaboration will address challenges in drug development by harnessing the power of genomic data to enable the discovery of drug targets coupled with biomarkers that increase the probability of success and decrease the cost of development.  

The focus of the collaboration will be on non-oncology indications where there are insufficient clinico-genomic datasets to advance genomically-based research goals. The collaboration will leverage Illumina’s next-generation sequencing (NGS) platforms alongside Ovation’s biobank, that contains 1.6+ million de-identified, consented and tokenized samples, with the goal of providing life sciences researchers with high-quality genomic data linked to rich, longitudinal clinical data at scale (e.g., electronic medical records, laboratory results and claims). The resulting human genomics data will help drive the identification of optimal targets across indications, significantly improving the success of existing treatments and the development of new therapeutics. 

This builds on Ovation’s existing IBD Omics product featuring whole genome sequencing and RNA-seq from IBD patients. Ovation’s IBD Omics product has been created to identify novel biomarkers for disease progression and therapy response in both Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. 

The first phase of the collaboration will focus on creating pilot datasets in liver disease, chronic kidney disease and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist treated patients to demonstrate the quality, depth and diversity of data derived from the Ovation biobank. Illumina and Ovation will then seek industry partners to sequence the most underrepresented and high value patient populations.

“Applying human genomic data in oncology and rare disease research has resulted in new personalized medicines that have proven transformative for patient outcomes. Our collaboration with Ovation will add to the depth and diversity of data available to drive research in metabolic diseases, cardiology, immunology and other indications,” said Todd Christian, senior vice president, Services, Arrays, and Genomic Access businesses at Illumina. “These types of collaborations build on our mission to unlock the power of the genome by expanding genomic healthcare insights across a wider range of conditions, accelerating the impact of precision medicines.”

“Our collaboration with Illumina represents a significant milestone in our goal to revolutionize genomic data and its availability for researchers,” said Curt Medeiros, CEO of Ovation. “By integrating Illumina’s industry-leading sequencing capabilities with our technology-enabled platform to source high volumes of consented patient samples, we have the opportunity to scale this partnership well beyond the initial 1.6M samples in the Ovation biobank, and propel the amount of human genomic data available to researchers.”