On October 3, 2024, Myriad Genetics, Inc., (NASDAQ: MYGN), a leader in genetic testing and precision medicine, and Ultima Genomics, Inc., a developer of a revolutionary new ultra-high throughput next-generation sequencing (NGS) platform, announced a joint effort to explore Ultima’s UG 100™ sequencing platform and its ppmSeq™ technology to advance Myriad’s ability to offer ground-breaking clinical tests. Myriad has purchased a new UG 100 that will soon join other leading sequencing platforms in its new Lab of the Future facility in South San Francisco.
The low-cost and low-error sequencing achievable on the UG 100 may benefit several of Myriad’s emerging products that require large amounts of high-fidelity sequencing data. The Myriad Precise Molecular Residual Disease (MRD) test performs whole-genome sequencing on two samples from cancer patients—one from a tumor and one from normal tissue—to comprehensively identify tumor-specific variants for subsequent tracking in a personalized panel. With Ultima’s support, Myriad will explore the potential for the Precise MRD test to improve in both performance and cost with ppmSeq on the UG 100. In the reproductive-health space, Myriad is expected to launch its FirstGene Multiple Prenatal Screen, which will run the content of multiple prenatal screens via a single sequencing workflow. FirstGene also requires deep and accurate sequencing that the UG 100 platform may be well suited to affordably provide.
“We are delighted to get a UG 100 into our laboratory and work with Ultima Genomics to investigate how it can help us advance patient care,” said Sam Raha, Chief Operating Officer, Myriad Genetics. “A key part of our mission is to make relevant cutting-edge genetic testing broadly accessible. We regularly evaluate new platforms that have the possibility of supporting our mission. As part of that process, we have identified the UG 100 as a potentially transformative platform that may provide an industrial sequencing center like ours the opportunity to lower costs, improve quality, and deepen insights simultaneously. It could influence how we offer and innovate upon some of our promising tests like Precise MRD and FirstGene, which are expected to enter the market in the near future, and it may also support us in exploring new areas with future products that may have been challenging to pursue otherwise.”
“We are pleased to be working with Myriad, a precision medicine leader, in the fast-evolving field of MRD, as well as exploring opportunities to deploy whole genome sequencing in other application areas,” said Gilad Almogy, CEO of Ultima Genomics. “Ultima’s unique sequencing architecture was designed to specifically meet the needs of large-scale applications. For oncology applications, our ppmSeq technology offers accuracy at extremely low limits of detection and we believe this will be transformational for applications requiring earlier detection such as MRD. Additionally, our low-cost sequencing offers an opportunity to affordably transition testing methods towards whole genome approaches where previously it was not possible due to the high costs of sequencing.”
About Myriad Genetics
Myriad Genetics is a leading genetic testing and precision medicine company dedicated to advancing health and well-being for all. Myriad develops and offers genetic tests that help assess the risk of developing disease or disease progression and guide treatment decisions across medical specialties where genetic insights can significantly improve patient care and lower healthcare costs. For more information, visit www.myriad.com.
About Ultima Genomics
Ultima Genomics is unleashing the power of genomics at scale. The Company’s mission is to continuously drive the scale of genomic information to enable unprecedented advances in biology and improvements in human health. With humanity on the cusp of a biological revolution, there is a virtually endless need for more genomic information to address biology’s complexity and dynamic change—and a further need to challenge conventional next-generation sequencing technologies. Ultima’s revolutionary new sequencing architecture drives down the costs of sequencing to help overcome the tradeoffs that scientists and clinicians are forced to make between the breadth, depth, and frequency with which they use genomic information. The new sequencing architecture was designed to scale far beyond conventional sequencing technologies, lower the cost of genomic information, and catalyze the next phase of genomics in the 21st century. To learn more, visit www.ultimagenomics.com/.