MedGenome raises $30M through Series C

MedGenome Secures $30M in Series C Funding Led by Sequoia India and Sofina

The company aims to accelerate adoption of cost effective genetic diagnostics

Sam Santhosh, Founder and Chairman of MedGenome

MedGenome, the leading genomics research and diagnostics company, announced completion of $30 million in Series C financing led by Sequoia India and Sofina s.a., with participation by Zodius Capital; Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder and former CEO of Infosys; and Lakshmi Narayanan, former CEO of Cognizant.

The Series C funding will accelerate development of the company’s affordable diagnostics tests and expand the market penetration by increasing customer awareness on the importance of genetic tests. Additionally, the funding will also be used to broaden biomarker discovery programs.

MedGenome operates the largest Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) lab in South East Asia, and a CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited sequencing lab in Foster City, CA. The company’s services are being leveraged by pharmaceutical and biotech companies across the globe. MedGenome’s diagnostics tests include many “firsts” for genetic diagnostics in India, including first liquid biopsy “OncoTrack” for monitoring cancer treatment, non-invasive prenatal screening test (NIPT) for pregnant women, carrier screening test for couples planning on a baby, and whole exome sequencing test for identifying mutations in rare diseases.

With over a million babies born each year with genetic disorders, India carries a huge genetic disorder burden.

“Precision medicine is the ultimate goal of clinicians and patients alike which can be enabled through extensive biomarker discovery,” said Sam Santhosh, Founder and Chairman of MedGenome. “MedGenome has established leadership in genetic diagnostics for inherited diseases in India. We will now expand DNA based testing to cover infectious diseases like tuberculosis” he added.

“MedGenome continues to emerge as a leading genomics company bringing affordable and high quality genetic testing to emerging market consumers, supporting physicians make better decisions and leveraging the power of that data to potentially impact global drug discovery market,” said Abhay Pandey, Managing Director at Sequoia Capital India Advisors. “Sequoia is excited to continue this partnership and are committed to helping MedGenome strengthen its proposition to consumers and doctors in these markets and become a significant player globally in the arena of precision medicine through data from the currently underrepresented emerging markets including India”.

"I am investing in MedGenome which addresses the extraordinary opportunities that exist today in the development of precision medicine” said Kris Gopalakrishnan, Co-founder and former CEO Infosys. “MedGenome’s platform and network are designed to generate actionable insights for clinicians to diagnose and provide better management for complex diseases at reasonable costs."

“Sofina is looking forward to this partnership to broaden the use of genomics-based diagnostics in the Indian healthcare sector, and tap into the value of Indian genetic data for research. We believe MedGenome's efforts will have a definitive impact on healthcare delivery in India and around the world,” said Xiao-Tian Loi, Investment Manager at Sofina.

Startup Tea Talk - March 21, 2017

Healthcare - Dramatic Changes ahead!

(This has been published in Future Medicine Magazine - www.futuremedicineonline.com)

The era of personalized medicine has arrived with the developments in genomics studies. But the studies have stumbled on obstacles like the amazing complexity of genomics data, slowing down its progress

With the full sequencing of the human genome in 2003 and the drastic fall of DNA sequencing costs in the last decade, there were great expectations in the scientific community as well as in the public’s mind that the heath care sector would see dramatic changes. The era of personalized medicine seemed to have arrived heralding individualized treatment regimes based on a person’s genome. However neither has this expectation been met nor has the practice of medicine changed significantly, yet.

What happened? Why did the Science fail to deliver?

The main reason for the seeming lack of progress has been the amazing complexity that the genomic data presented.  Every step forward seemed to open up more avenues than scientists could explore and it soon became clear that it would take decades of effort to understand what it took Nature millions of years to evolve. The first revelation was rather surprising – contrary to the initial expectation that the human genome would contain about 80 to 100,000 genes, there were only about 20,000 genes to do the job. Not only that, many plant genomes were bigger and more complex than the human genome and hence bigger did not mean better! More surprising revelations were on the way - decoding the gene sequences were shedding very little light on diseases or even traits. Even characteristics that looked genetically straightforward like ‘height’ could not be pinned down on specific genes. The non coding regions of the genome - what was considered once as ‘junk DNA’ – was playing an important part in regulating gene activity.  Other factors such as environment, food and even stress level were playing a major role.   Further, the importance of epigenetics (heritable, chemical modifications to the genome that would affect the function without changing the sequence) and the microbiome (the microbial cells in the human body that not only number about 10 times more than the human cells, but also play a significant role in digestion and immunity) was sufficient proof that the belief that the genomic data was the entire and only blueprint for the development of the organism was naïve at best.

At the same time, what we could understand of the genome offered tantalizing glimpses into our past, present and future health. The genomic data proved beyond doubt the origin of humans in Africa and we could now trace our migratory path over the rest of the earth in the last 60,000 years. During this migratory journey our species did breed to a minor extent with other homo species like Neanderthals and Denisovans (and maybe others as well), acquiring 5 to 8% of their genes.  As we split into different ethnicities in different regions, the climate, food and other environmental pressures led to different groups acquiring different genetics mutations leading to changes in appearance as well as different capabilities like lactose tolerance, disease immunity and so on.  We could now understand why many drugs create adverse reactions in some and why we react so differently to various disease causing pathogens. Genes causing over 6000  rare inherited diseases have now been identified.  We have been able to pinpoint specific genetic mutations that lead to cancer in about 35 to 40 % of the cases.  A number of drugs that can treat these cancers have been released and many more are on their way. Genes that play a major role in cardiovascular diseases, diabetes etc. have been identified and we are on the path to reaching the dream of predictive and personalized medicine.

What more should be done?

While there is no doubt that we are moving in the right direction, we still need a considerable amount of genomic studies across the world.  Surprisingly, it has been a recent realization that India is a treasure trove for genomics. Over the last 2000 years, unknowingly, India has been the home to the largest genomic experiment in human history. Due to religion, caste and geography, the Indian population has been split to over 4500 groups and till recently has been strictly breeding within the groups. This has created unique genetic mutations that when co-related with susceptibility to diseases can lead to major discoveries. India also suffers from a higher burden of inherited diseases due to inbreeding and consanguinity and thus a better understanding of the genome can lead to proper treatment and cure. Counseling and carrier testing of couples can significantly reduce the occurrence of many inherited diseases thus reducing the burden on the family as well as the society.

India is also home to traditional systems of medicine like Ayurveda which promoted ‘personalized’ medicine 3000 years ago. However, the science was very basic at that time and hence there was no clear understanding of why the herbal medicines or treatment practices worked. Now, if we can combine the genomic understanding with traditional practices and conduct extensive studies across our population, we would be able to make a difference in the healthcare sector by providing solutions in a cost effective manner.

The Creative Destruction of Medicine by Eric Topol (Book Review)

Doctors Beware!

Every revolution shows the incumbents in poor light - they look foolish, stubborn and indecisive. Eric Topol shows how breakthrough growth in mobile phones, wireless technologies and genomics, and their convergence is revolutionizing Medicine and Healthcare but the current 'high priests' whether it is doctors or the bureaucracy dont seem to be getting it. Nevertheless the flow seems to be irreversible as informed consumers empower themselves and push for new solutions that will provide better care, cheaper and more effective medicines, and democratize the healthcare system. Topols' stories about the shortcomings on the current system are scary and he is very tough on the members of his profession. Other players in the ecosystem like the Pharma companies also do not escape his sharp criticism. He will not be making many friends with this book - however it will be tremendously useful to the readers in multiple ways - as an individual on how to plan for your healthcare, as a student on planning your career, as an investor or entrepreneur for understanding opportunities that would create revolutionary wealth!. For people in the healthcare profession this should be a wake up call. I would urge all to read this book.

The future of Personalized Medicine - P4 Medicine!

"Predictive, Personalized, Preventive & Participatory"

I listened to an exciting presentation on P4 medicine from Dr.Leroy Hood of Institute of Systems Biology, Seattle at Policy Forum meeting hosted by 23andme at Burlingame, San Francisco on July 14, 2010.

Dr.Hood explained how will P4 medicine will catalyze a revolution from Reactive to Proactive Medicine. He highlighted the general scientific advances that are leading to this revolution - the use of systems approaches to understanding disease, them emergence of transformational technologies and the development of new mathematical and computational tools to analyze, integrate and develop predictive and actionable models of how to deal with disease.

Features of P4 Medicine are:

• Informational Science
• Data Driven - each patient will have billions of data points
• Patients taking more control - from definition of wellnes to assessing treatment for disease
• Benefits

Lower cost of Healthcare

Transformational nature of healthcare

Global wellness

• For rich and poor

For more details take a look at www.systemsbiology.org and www.integrated-diagnostics.com

The Decision Tree - by Thomas Goetz

The Choice is up to you....


Good health is the most important aspect of our life, but we seldom pay much attention to it till we fall sick. In this insightful book 'The Decision Tree', Thomas Goetz shows us why we should take control of our health and how this can have a significantly better outcome than just depending on our doctor. All our life, we have been taught that 'Doctor knows best' and we listen (even if we don't follow) to the doctor's advice. However Goetz show us that in this new era of Personalized Medicine, we need to take the decision making into our hands since neither the healthcare system nor the doctors are incentivized properly to focus on the preventive care that is critical.

How do we do this? That is the strategy that Goetz explains to us in this book using his 'Decision Tree' concept. The book is divided into three parts (a) Prediction & Prevention (b) Diagnosis & Detection (c) Care & Treatment. The first part focuses on how the recent advances in genomics can now start providing us the right basic data of our predispositions but still how difficult it is for us to change our habits even if we know that they are harmful. The second part concentrates on the screening and diagnosis tests - with the benefits and pitfalls and the third part targets the approaches to treatment efforts and how people are grouping together to find better ways of treating their diseases. In this time of enhanced privacy concerns I was thrilled to see web sites like www.patientslikeme.com and www.curetogether.com taking advantage of the internet to discover common solutions for those afflicted with similar diseases.

This book has made a significant change to how I view my health planning and I believe it will do the same to any reader who takes the effort to read the book. I would strongly recommend that you do.

Full Gene sequencing for $5000 !!

Door opens for Personal Genomics

With the announcement this week by Complete Genomics Inc. that it will offer $5000 sequencing of a whole human genome (~3 billion base pairs) by mid-2009, the door is finally opening for Personal Genomics.

This means in a few years, millions of people will be getting their genome fuly sequenced. Think about the huge opportunity not only for gene sequencing companies, Pharmacogenomics players and so on, but also for IT companies who will need to create solutions to store, analyze and interpret the data!

Therapy from Human Embryo Stem Cells - Finally!

Geron Corp of Menlo Park, California finally won approval from U.S Federal Regulators to start the first trial of an experimental therapy derived from Human Embryonic stem cells (hESC) in patients with acute spinal cord injury . Geron will inject the cells into the spinal cords of 10 newly injured patients. At this point Geron's treatment only has a chance of success if it is administered within a few weeks after the spinal injury.

GRNOPC1, Geron's lead hESC-based therapeutic candidate, contains hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells that have demonstrated remyelinating and nerve growth stimulating properties leading to restoration of function in animal models of acute spinal cord injury.

The ultimate goal for the use of GRNOPC1 is to achieve restoration of spinal cord function by the injection of hESC-derived oligodendrocyte progenitor cells directly into the lesion site of the patient's injured spinal cord.

Coming days after President' Obama's inauguration let us hope that this signals the new administration's position on Science!

Genetic Diagnostics - To test or not to?

Blood Matters by Masha Gessen (Book Review)

The book describes the journey of the author who is diagnosed with a genetic mutation that predisposes her to ovarian and breast cancer. As she fights personal battle, she also tries to explore the field of genetic testing, its implications as well as ethical considerations.

The jacket cover of the book claims it is “a much needed field guide to this unfamiliar and unsettling territory.” Well, it is not. It is more a rambling journey across a difficult terrain by a pioneer, discovering trails and gathering knowledge during the process. The lack of a science background and the inability to explain the fundamentals in a clear and structured way weakens the book. Explaining a complex science to the laymen is tough but has been mastered by authors like Carl Sagan, Brian Greene and Richard Dawkins. This book fails to reach that level.

However, it does capture well the agony of an individual who goes through a challenging situation created by new knowledge provided by science. This will definitely be something more of us go through in future as we will be forced to grapple with the information provided by genetic testing.

The book provides interesting information on Asheknazi Jews as well as organizations like Dor Yeshorim which collect genetic data to provide predictive information. In spite of her jewish heritage, the author covers the Nazi efforts on eugenics with equanimity. A number of genetic diseases and their current research status are covered in the book through many interviews with experts across the world. Nevertheless the lack of a clear structure, direction and focus wastes the author’s efforts to a large extent.