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Gene Editing Companies (December 2018)

December 7, 2018, 3:13 am

I’ve put together the list of Gene/Genome/DNA editing business below. I’ve listed companies who seem to be primarily service or research apps businesses below the main list, however the distinction isn’t always clear as they may have some novel technology as well as.

These are all the editing companies I’m aware of. If you know of any more, or have any corrections for the list, let me know!

Company Stage Raised Application Location Site/Info
Agenovir Acquired 10.6M antiviral therapies San Diego – USA report
ATGC Inc IPO nanoparticle delivery system Ann Arbor – USA grant info
Beam Therapeutics Series A 87M Base editor human therapeutics Cambridge – USA site
Biopalette Seed? ~2M Non-cutting Editing tech Kobe – Japan site
Caribou Biosciences Series B 74.6M Foundational CRISPR-Cas9 IP Bay Area – USA site
Celdara Medical CRISPR HIV Therapy New Hampshire – USA grant info
CELL MICROSYSTEMS INC. High throughput CRISPR cell-line production North Carolina – USA grant info
Cellectis IPO CAR-T (gene edited) for Cancer therapy France site
Cibus Series C 200M Gene editing crop development San Diego site
Crispa Therapeutics Series B 127M Foundational CRISPR IP – Human therapeutics Cambridge – USA site
Desktop Genetics Series A? 6.9M AI for CRISPR design London – UK site
Edigene Series A 15M Engineered CRISPR/Cas9 Tokyo – Japan site
Edit Force Series A ~4.5M PPR protein engineering tech. Fukuoka – Japan site
Editas Medicine IPO 210M CRISPR for human therapeutics Cambridge – USA site
eGenesis Bio Series A 40M Edited animals for xenotransplantation Cambridge – USA site
Eligo Bioscience (fka PhageX) Series A 22.9M Bacteriophage delivered CRISPR anti-microbials Paris – France site
Evotec AG IPO CRISPR licensee – research tools Hamburg – Germany report
Excision BioTherapeutics Seed 10M Human therapeutics Pennsylvania – USA site
Exonics Therapeutics Series A 45M SingleCut CRISPR for human therapeutics (neuromuscular) Watertown – MA – USA site
GenEdit pre-seed? CRISPR (+other) therapeutics with nanoparticle delivery Berkeley – USA site
Homology Medicines IPO 127M Homologous recombination for human therapeutics Bedford – MA – USA site
Inari Agriculture Series B 40M Editing for Agriculture applications Cambridge – USA site
indee labs Seed 5.1M Vortex shedding gene delivery for editing apps San Francisco – USA site
Inscripta Series C 84.4M Developing new classes of CRISPR endonuclease novel editing tech. Boulder – USA site
Ligandal Seed 844K Nanotech delivery platform for CRISPR human therapeutics San Francisco – USA site
Locus Biosciences Series A 26M CRISPR-engineered bacteriophage cocktails – human therapeutics North Carolina – USA site
Mammoth Biosciences Series A 24.6M CRISPR-based disease detection (human diagnostics) San Francisco – USA site
NextBiotics Seed 100K CRISPR edited bacterophage? San Francisco – USA site
Pairwise Plants Series A 25M Gene editing for agricultural applications North Carolina – USA site
Plantedit Seed 100K Gene editing for agricultural applications Indiana – USA. site
Poseida Therapeutics Series B 84.5M Novel Cas-CLOVER editing for human therapeutic applications San Diego – USA site
Precision BioSciences Series B 135.7M Homing endonuclease based editing platform North Carolina – USA site
Recombinetics Series A 60.9M xenotransplantation and edit humanized disease models Minnesota – USA site
Sangamo Therapeutics IPO 93.2M ZFN Gene editing for human therapeutics Richmond – USA site

Service Businesses

Company Stage Raised Application Location Site/Info
Allele Biotechnology Series B 10M Service business San Diego – USA site
Applied StemCells Series D 23.5M Service business San Francisco – USA site
GeneCopoeia CRISPR Service business Maryland – USA site
genoway Edited mice etc. Service business Lyon – France site
GenScript CRISPR Service Business New Jersey – USA site
Horizon Discovery IPO Editing Service Business Cambridge – UK site
HUDSON RIVER BIOTECHNOLOGY BV IPO Editing Service Business Netherlands site
inDroso CRISPR genome edited flies Service Business Rennes – France site
ThermoFisher Service Business site
MaxCyte IPO 31.3M Editing Services and tools Maryland – USA site
OriGene CRISPR Service business and products Maryland – USA site
Sigma Aldrich Service business and tools site
Synthego Series C 159.5M Service Business and tools for editing Redwood City – USA site
Taconic Biosciences Service business – CRISPR mouse models New York – USA site
ToolGen Service business -IP holder? Seoul – Korea site

Misc

BBI Life Sciences: www.bbi-lifesciences.com
Benchling – Design tool: site

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QuantumSi

December 4, 2018, 2:58 pm

There’s very little public information about QuantumSi. Sequencing isn’t mentioned on the company website [1]. QuantumSi is part of the 4Catalyzer group of companies, founded by Johnathan Rothberg. Rothberg of course, previously founded sequencing companies 454 Life Sciences, and Ion Torrent. QuantumSi’s patents mostly list Rothberg as an inventor and are largely DNA sequencing related.

Technology

The QuantumSi approach as presented in patents appears to be similar to the Pacific Biosciences Zero Mode Waveguide platform:

QuantumSi and PacBio approaches from [2] and [3].

In this approach a polymerase is tethered to the bottom of a nanoscale well (ZMW). The well is illuminated, however because the well is smaller than the illumination wavelength the photons can not fully enter the well. Instead, you get an evanescent field confined within a few nanometers of the surface.

This is not unlike TIRF microscopy, which similarly confines illumination to within a few nanometers of a surface (and is used in Illumina sequencing [4]).

To sequence a strand of DNA the polymerase incorporates fluorescently labeled nucleotides. There are no terminators so nucleotides are incorporated in real time. During incorporation the fluoresces are cleaved and released. This results in a brief “flash” as the label is excited under the evanescent field.

These flashes need to be monitored in real time. This is were the QuantumSi and PacBio approaches appear to differ. Looking at RS and PacBio chips, it looks like PacBio moved from external camera in the RS to a fully integrated chip in the Sequel:

PacBio patents [5] suggest that they may use a fresnel lens integrated under the ZMW. Under the lens are multiple (appears to be 2) filters and sensor:

Integrating a fresnel lens onto a semiconductor device seems really neat. However I suspect this makes for a significantly non-standard (and more expensive) fabrication process.

The QuantumSi patents differ in terms of detection. Rather than using filters to detect labels with different excitation wavelength, the QuantumSi chips use intensity and decay rate to distinguish between different labels [6]:

I guess these may be standard fluorophores, but I’ve not dug into the patents to find out exactly what’s being used. While the patent mentions excitation “intensity” I’d assume that the photosensor responds with differing intensity to different wavelengths, so it could just be this that results in differing intensity between the fluorophores. The rate of fluorescent delay, provides a secondary signal to help distinguish between label types.

This approach most likely results in a cheaper chip, that can be more easily manufactured using a standard manufacturing process (as no lens or filters are required).

Given Illumina’s recent acquisition of Pacific Biosciences the potential for a low cost competitor to PacBio using a similar approach is interesting. I’ll be keeping an eye on QuantumSi, Rothberg has a track record of executing well, and I suspect we will hear more in the not too distant future.

Notes

[1] http://quantum-si.com/

[2] https://patents.google.com/patent/US20170362651A1

[3] https://patents.google.com/patent/US7973146B2

[4] https://blogs.swarthmore.edu/Illumina+GAIIx+Teardown/?p=27

[5] http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20180180548.pdf

[6] http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2017/0349944.html

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2018 DNA Sequencing Raises and Acquisitions

November 19, 2018, 11:32 am

As we’re heading toward the end of 2018, I thought it might be interesting to put together a list of DNA sequencing companies that have raised in 2018. I’m aware of 14 companies that either raised or were acquired this year. Excluding acquisitions this totaled 368MUSD of investment.

Company Amount (MUSD) Further Info
Centrillion Biosciences 27.5 info
Direct Genomics 34 info
Genapsys 32.5 info
iNanoBio 3.3 info
LaserGen (acquired) 105 info
Omniome 60 info
Oxford Nanopore 140 info
Pacific Biosciences (acquired) 1200 info
Quantapore 15.55 info
Quantum Biosystems 8.8 info
QuantumDX 12 info
Stratos Genomics 20 info
Two Pore Guys 2.9+4.6? info
Universal Sequencing Technology 8 info

A couple of other companies raised toward the end of 2017:
Cygnus Biosciences, 19.6M USD info and
Base4 Innovation Ltd, 6.5M USD, info.

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Thoughts on Ion Torrent and the iSeq

November 19, 2018, 4:26 am

Recently I’ve been thinking about the economics of semiconductor sequencing, in particular approaches like Ion torrents, and the iSeq which use a relatively large die which gets thrown away with the rest of the flow cell.

In this post, I’m using to review aspects of Ion Torrents development, I don’t cover the technological approach (which is well described in their Nature paper [3]).

Business (to acquisition)

Ion torrent was founded in 2007 by Jonathan Rothberg (no doubt building on his prior success with 454). They raised approximately 60MUSD in funding (from Bay City Capital among others).

Ion torrent was acquired only three years after it was founded in 2010. Life Technologies initially paid 375MUSD with potential for another 350MUSD in milestone payments. Milestone payments were paid in 2012 [1], making the final acquisition price 725MUSD.

It’s surprising how soon acquisition came after funding, both rounds which happened less than a year before acquisition. Given the platforms reliance on semiconductor fabrication, this doesn’t seem like enough time to get much done (iterate over a new chip for example).

I therefore assume that prior to the rounds listed there was probably some seed funding, perhaps supplied by Rothberg himself.

I’d also guess that the investment rounds were at a valuation of 100 to 200MUSD. So the exit was at x4 the last round price. Given how quickly the exit came, this seems pretty good.

Business (current)

Ion torrents market share is something like 10%. Their niche is a relatively cheap benchtop instrument aimed at small labs. They’ve also developed a number of diagnostic applications around the device.

The Ion Proton uses a chip with a ~20mm square die. Based on my estimates this probably costs at least 200USD to fabricate. Given that runs cost 1000USD, I’d guess their margins are lower than Illumina’s, probably 50 to 60% on consumables? [2] (compared to 90% for Illumina).

The ion torrent 318 chip is smaller ~1cm^2. At minimum I’d guess this costs 50USD. The kit here sells for 625USD. It’s therefore possible margins are better here.

It’s also interesting to compare the 318 chip to the iSeq (illumina’s new instrument). They both have similar throughput. The runs both cost 625USD. The iSeq die looks smaller however, which may allow higher margins on the iSeq.

I’d also guess that the iSeq uses a standard CMOS image sensor, not developed exclusively for Illumina. This most likely reduced development costs, and means that Illumina can take advantage of a more robust supply chain, and economies of scale that come with a commodity part.

In short, it feels like Illumina maybe able to squeeze Ion torrent a little more with the iSeq, given their costs are probably lower.

Notes

[1] https://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/life-tech-initiates-second-milestone-payment-ion-torrent#.W_B_SRaRUlQ

[2] There’s a report from system plus on the Ion 520 chip, it appears this contains detailed cost estimates, however it costs 3500Euros…

http://www.yole.fr/THERMO_FISHER_ION_TORRENT_TechnologyOverview.aspx

[3] https://www.nature.com/articles/nature10242

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