NEWS: Sema4, BioSymetrics Partner on Multiomic Drug Discovery

NEW YORK – Sema4 and BioSymetrics said Tuesday that they have entered into a strategic partnership to take multiomic approaches to finding new therapeutic candidates.

The firms will combine Sema4's Centrellis health intelligence technology with BioSymetrics' phenotypic drug discovery platform to seek novel treatments, initially for atherosclerosis. Stamford, Connecticut-based Sema4 and Toronto-based BioSymetrics have agreed to launch as many as 10 therapeutic programs in "areas of high unmet need," primarily in cardiovascular, neurological, and rare diseases.

"The power of applying our predictive network modeling to drug discovery will result in greater success, lower attrition, and a deeper understanding of the patient journey as it relates to identifying more personalized treatments," Sema4 Founder and CEO Eric Schadt said in a statement.

"Connecting the dots between human clinical and genomic data, and experimental model systems, using advanced machine learning, increases the probability of successfully advancing new drugs that work well for more patients," BioSymetrics Cofounder and CEO Anthony Iacovone added. "Sema4 has unique multiomic data access and insights that will, together, improve our ability to find a treatment for different groups of people living with diseases where there is currently no treatment or the standard of care is low."

Sema4 is in the process of acquiring GeneDx from Opko Health for $623 million. Once that transaction closes, Schadt will share the CEO role with current GeneDx CEO Katherine Stueland.

BioSymetrics is a partner in COVID Cloud, a bioinformatics and health data platform for COVID-19 research across Canada.

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