Regeneron forms consortium to fund exome sequencing
Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has formed a consortium with five other companies to fund the generation of exome sequence data from 500,000 volunteers in the UK.
Announced on Monday, January 8, the consortium will see AbbVie, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca, Biogen and Pfizer each commit $10 million to accelerate sequencing timelines.
Exome sequencing records all of the protein-coding genes in a genome (known as the exome).
Regeneron will conduct the sequencing generation, and the sequencing data will be paired with medical and health records within the UK Biobank, a long-term study, to create a resource for linking human genetic variations to human biology and disease.
The sequencing of the samples was originally meant to be completed by 2022, with the first 50,000 samples sequenced during 2017 with funding from Regeneron and GSK.
Now, the sequencing is expected to be completed by the end of 2019, with the data being made available by the UK Biobank to researchers by the end of 2020.
George Yancopoulos, president and chief scientific officer of Regeneron, said that with increasing national and global health concerns, it is an excellent statement that “so many leading life sciences companies are willing to put aside their individual differences and come together to bring this unprecedented, pre-competitive ‘big data’ resource to the world”.
Sequencing of the entire genome of UK Biobank participants is also being planned.
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