UK brings in Chinese partner to push forward flagship genomics project

Genomics England Thursday announced that it had contracted with Chinese company, WuXi NextCODE, as a clinical interpretation partner for Britain's 100,000 Genomes Project.

Genomics England is a company owned by Britain's Department of Health and was set up to deliver the 100,000 Genomes Project. This flagship project will sequence 100,000 whole genomes from local patients and their families. The project is focusing on patients with rare diseases, and their families, as well as patients with common cancers.

Genomics England said it would work with the clinical interpretation partners to drive up the quality of interpretation of genomic data, which could lead to better understanding of disease and more personalized care for patients in the future.

With WuXi NextCODE's database model and clinical and tumor-normal analysis and reporting systems, clinicians can analyze patient sequence data and identify causative variants in rare diseases and driver mutations in tumors.

The Chinese company's sequence analysis platform "will help us to return high quality variant interpretation results back to clinicians and make a direct impact on patient care," said Dr. Augusto Rendon, Director of Bioinformatics at Genomics England. Endit