BioPharma, Hospitals, Pharma

China-based genomics giant opens Philly office to support collaboration with CHOP

The U.S. division of the Beijing Genomics Institute has opened an office around the corner […]

The U.S. division of the Beijing Genomics Institute has opened an office around the corner from Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, according to a press statement. It’s a logical move as CHOP and BGI have been collaborating on several projects in connection with their joint genomics center — BGI@CHOP.

The partnership gives the hospital the capacity to sequence every child that comes into CHOP.

BGI Health Americas’ office is located in the Port incubator within the University City Science Center. The Port has offices and lab space for early stage and growth stage companies as well as businesses seeking to grow in the U.S. or the region. To date it houses 38 companies employing 93 people.

The goal of the collaboration is to provide next-generation sequencing to address problems in clinical diagnostics and personalized medicine. Last summer BGI and CHOP launched a program to accelerate the discovery of gene variants for 1,000 rare diseases to better understand what causes them. Earlier this year, it added next-generation sequencing and analysis for pediatric brain tumors to its programs at BGI@CHOP to support the Childhood Brain Tumor Tissue Consortium. The goal of the project is to develop more effective personalized therapies for each patient’s specific brain tumor subtype.

The company has also contributed to international collaborations such as with the Human Genome Project and the HapMap project for human genetic diversity

Another biotechnology company opening an office at the Science Center is CytoVas. It’s collaborating with Beckton Dickinson to advance a blood-based diagnostic to determine personal risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.

Also in the Port are biotechnology startup AUM Life Tech. Led by CEO Veenu Aishwarya, It aims to develop the next generation of innovative, potent and cost effective biotech research tools/platform in the area of gene silencing and manipulation to be used in genetics and genomics-based research, according to an emailed description from Aishwarya. Its initial target market is academic researchers seeking to understand biology and disease. He added that these tools will eventually have applications in treating genetic disorders using Nucleic Acid based Therapeutics.

Belgian clinical trial company, S-Clinica provides IT solutions to support remote and on-site patient data collection and drug supply chain management.

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