Members of the Alliance for Genomic Discovery revealed

Illumina and Nashville Biosciences’ have announced AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer and Merck as founding members

Illumina – a company focused on in DNA sequencing – in collaboration with Nashville Biosciences, a genomic data company, have revealed the founding members of the ‘Alliance for Genomic Discovery’ (AGD). Nashville Biosciences is a subsidiary of Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC).

The agreement has been made with a view to speed up the progress of therapeutics through the establishment of a preeminent clinical genomic resource and large-scale genomics. Subsequently, pharma giants AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer and Merck have become founding members and will co-fund the whole-genome sequencing (WGS) project.

All the companies will have access to the emerging data for use in both drug discovery and therapeutic development.

The AGD supports a turnkey project leveraging Illumina next-generation sequencing and analysis platforms. The vast phenotypic and genotypic data will assist in identifying disease associations and targets for intervention by analysing WGS data taken from VUMC’s extensive biobank of over 250,000 de-identified human DNA samples.

Joydeep Goswami, chief financial officer and chief strategy and corporate development officer at Illumina, was excited about the prospects of the collective: “We are thrilled to welcome these esteemed companies as the founding cohort in the AGD.”

He added: “Together, we aim to advance genomics and multiomics-based methods for finding therapeutic targets that are more actionable in the treatment and curing of diseases, while also improving the speed, probability of success, and efficiency of the discovery and development process.”

Jeff Balser, president and chief executive officer of VUMC and dean of Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, concluded: “Collaborations like the Alliance are fundamental to answering the pressing questions in human biology and disease, unlocking the potential for discovery of more effective therapeutics and diagnostics.

“VUMC and Nashville Biosciences are honoured to support our industry partners in this groundbreaking endeavour.”

Following the announcement, deCODE genetics, a subsidiary of Amgen, will sequence any remaining samples for the alliance.