Twist Bioscience Collaborates with Regeneron for Production of Genotyping by Sequencing Panel to Enable Diverse Genome-wide S...
June 14 2021 - 8:01AM
Business Wire
-- Population Genetics Sequencing Panel
Incorporates Global Genetic Variations for Superior Study of
Disease and Target Discovery --
Twist Bioscience Corporation (Nasdaq: TWST), a company enabling
customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic
DNA using its silicon platform, today announced it collaborated
with Regeneron Genetics Center LLC (RGC), a wholly-owned subsidiary
of Regeneron (Nasdaq: REGN), for the production of a custom
next-generation sequencing (NGS) population genetics genotyping
assay. Arising from a need to incorporate the genetic differences
of global populations, this assay is designed to gain new insights
into disease mechanisms, identify novel drug targets, and
accelerate drug discovery and development. Twist will market the
assay as the Twist Diversity SNP Panel, and will make the content
available to researchers globally for their population genomics
studies.
Genome-wide association studies using genotyping microarrays
have long been a critical tool in understanding how genetic
variation impacts disease. Recent reports highlight that the
majority of genetic association studies completed with commercially
available microarray platforms include genetic markers from people
of European descent predominantly, with little global diversity.
Underrepresentation of diverse populations in genomic analysis
hinders the ability to fully understand disease cause and
correlation and perpetuates inequality in patient care.
Addressing this gap, the Twist Diversity SNP panel is inclusive
of approximately 1.4 million globally-representative genetic
variations known as single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Under
its new agreement with the RGC, Twist will make this product
broadly available to customers beginning today.
“Leveraging Twist’s custom NGS panel design capabilities, the
RGC developed a first-of-its-kind, proprietary population
genotyping assay that includes DNA probes that capture globally
diverse genetic sequence variations,” said John Overton, Ph.D.,
vice president and RGC chief sequencing officer. “This targeted
panel integrates into our existing fully automated exome processing
workflow and provides base calls and imputed variants whose quality
already exceeds the array-based approaches we were using. We began
using this panel in late 2020 in the RGC and already we are seeing
positive results in our integrated research to better understand
the biology of human diseases.”
“While SNP microarray has been the gold standard of genetic
study, we have more and more customers asking for a complete
genotyping solution that allows flexibility for customized disease
research and we believe this is the future of disease marker
testing,” said Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder of
Twist Bioscience. “Collaborating with Regeneron to optimize the
assay with content from multiple ethnicities enables increased
characterization of diverse populations to improve understanding
around disease and potentially therapeutic development as well.
We’re pleased to bring the Twist Diversity SNP assay to the
scientific community.”
The Diversity SNP assay also enables research centers to
consolidate their data generation costs and physical footprints by
leveraging next-generation sequencers for both genotyping and
exome/custom panels rather than maintaining separate genotyping
instrumentation and lab space. While microarrays provide
information about the presence or absence of a genetic variant, the
Diversity SNP panel produces dynamic, multi-faceted information
across a broad spectrum of the population. In addition, the panel
can be iterated quickly to build a customized assay incorporating
real-time journal and database entries.
About the Twist Diversity SNP Panel
As the first release in Twist’s emerging Targeted
Genotyping-By-Sequencing (GBS) portfolio, the Twist Diversity SNP
panel leverages Twist’s best-in-class DNA synthesis platform to
generate a global panel of more than 600,000 probes governing
approximately 1.4 million SNPs. Used separately as a stand-alone
genotyping panel or as an addition (spike-in) into Twist’s Human
Comprehensive Exome panel, this assay gives researchers a new
ethnicity-neutral gold standard to use in generating genotyping
data to match with their sequencing and other genomic data.
Compared to historical microarray platforms that offer fixed
content updated occasionally, the Twist Diversity SNP panel allows
scientists the freedom to choose between standardized catalogue
content or - with Twist’s custom NGS probes capabilities - the
ability to build upon this foundation with additional regions of
interest, creating unique content for any focused disease research
application. For higher throughput users, this approach also
enables improved scale-up economics with no requirement for
additional capital investment.
About Twist Bioscience Corporation
Twist Bioscience is a leading and rapidly growing synthetic
biology and genomics company that has developed a disruptive DNA
synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology. The
core of the platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a
new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by “writing” DNA on a
silicon chip. Twist is leveraging its unique technology to
manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products,
including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing
(NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and
development. Twist is also pursuing longer-term opportunities in
digital data storage in DNA and biologics drug discovery. Twist
makes products for use across many industries including healthcare,
industrial chemicals, agriculture and academic research.
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Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements. All
statements other than statements of historical facts contained
herein, including without limitation Twist’s ability to make the
Twist Diversity SNP panel broadly available to customers in Spring
2021, the Twist Diversity SNP panel’s ability to help data centers
consolidate their data generation costs and physical footprints,
ability to be iterated quickly and role in future of disease marker
testing, are forward-looking statements reflecting the current
beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe
harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act
of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown
risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause
Twist Bioscience’s actual results, performance, or achievements to
be materially different from any future results, performance, or
achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking
statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the
risks and uncertainties of the ability to attract new customers and
retain and grow sales from existing customers; risks and
uncertainties of rapidly changing technologies and extensive
competition in synthetic biology could make the products Twist
Bioscience is developing obsolete or non-competitive; uncertainties
of the retention of a significant customer; risks of third party
claims alleging infringement of patents and proprietary rights or
seeking to invalidate Twist Bioscience’s patents or proprietary
rights; and the risk that Twist Bioscience’s proprietary rights may
be insufficient to protect its technologies. For a further
description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual
results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking
statements, as well as risks relating to Twist Bioscience’s
business in general, see Twist Bioscience’s risk factors set forth
in Twist Bioscience’s Quarterly Report Form 10-Q filed with the
Securities and Exchange Commission on February 9, 2021 and
subsequent filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements
contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof,
and Twist Bioscience specifically disclaims any obligation to
update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new
information, future events or otherwise.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210614005181/en/
Angela Bitting SVP, Corporate Affairs 925-202-6211
abitting@twistbioscience.com
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