Some good news for San Diego biotech entrepreneurs – there’s new competition in the local co-working market, potentially leading to lower prices or better perks for startup working spaces. The national co-working chain, WeWork, is opening up 54,000 sq. ft. of office space near the heart of San Diego’s biotech hub, with prices as...
Author: Shawn Baker
Liquid Biopsy Companies
Liquid biopsies represent one of the hottest trends in genomics and there has been an explosion of companies getting into this space. Naturally it’s been a topic of intense interest for consulting clients, so it’s an area that I monitor closely. There are well over 500 companies in the SanDiegOmics “Genome Technology” database, and...
Liquid biopsy companies dominating biotech VC funding
The latest issue of GEN summarizes the VC activity in the biotech space for 2017 so far. There were 205 deals through the end of Q2 in which a total of $4.697B was raised. Three genomics companies alone accounted for $1.335B of that total: GRAIL = $900M (Q1) Guardant Health = $360M (Q2) WuXi...
Helix is selling genomics to the masses – do the masses know what they’re buying?
Helix, the DTC genomics company Illumina spun out in 2015, is open and ready for business. They have used their initial $100M investment to establish a marketplace for the analysis of consumer genomes – an “app store” for genomics, along the lines of Apple’s App Store or Google Play. Helix does the heavy lifting...
The latest on circular RNAs
The Scientist just came out with a nice article on circular RNAs, including a summary of the latest research and clues to their function. It’s still not clear what circRNAs “do”, but the consensus has been that whatever it is, it doesn’t involve being translated into protein. That no longer appears to be the...
Welcome to SanDiegOmics!
Welcome to the SanDiegOmics blog! This is where I’ll be sharing with you the latest trends and updates in the genomics market, including next generation sequencing, genome editing, clinical interpretation, and more. I’ll also be commenting on genomics startup resources for San Diego, the epicenter of this rapidly growing industry. Finally, I’ll also be...