African genomics company, 54gene has secured $15 million Series A round to scale operations in support of generating novel insights from human genetics research that result in high impact discoveries for improving human health through therapeutic development.
The funding is led by Adjuvant Capital, a San Francisco health investment firm backed by the International Finance Corporation, Novartis and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The round included participation from Raba Capital, V8 Capital, Ingressive Capital, and follow on investment from Y Combinator, Better Ventures, Fifty Years, KdT Ventures, Aera VC and Pioneer Fund.
In July 2019, 54gene secured a Seed round of $4.5M which brings the company’s total VC investment to $19.5M. The investment will also be used to accelerate discovery capabilities by bolstering operations in genetics, bioinformatics, preclinical, clinical and commercial programs.
“This new partnership marks a significant evolution in the growth of our company,” Abasi Ene-Obong, founder and CEO of 54gene said in a statement BusinessDay received. “In the coming months, we will be focusing on building a genomic resource that we hope will add significantly to global health, while also translating to the health benefits of patients in Africa. We will also be expanding our collaborations in Africa with both public and private stakeholders and investing in setting up a state-of-the-art research lab with high-throughput genetic processing and BSL 3 capabilities in Nigeria, and ensuring that we build some of our innovative pipelines on the African continent.”
Launched in January 2019, 54gene seeks to address the significant gap the genomics market currently poses for Africa, and build and use African genetic data sets to make landmark discoveries to support therapeutic development. As of 2018, less than 3 percent of the data used in Genome-wide Association Studies [GWAS] were of African ancestry and currently, less than 1 percent of global drug discovery occurs on the African continent. Located in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria, and in the US, 54gene aims to improve the development, availability, and efficacy of medical products that will prove beneficial to Africans and the wider global population.
As part of its next stage of growth, the company will further explore partnerships and opportunities for co-development of drug targets and therapeutics and expects to partner with pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostic companies for clinical programs in Africa, which will be led by 54gene’s newly appointed Vice President of Clinical & Regulatory Affairs, Kemi Williams, who was formerly Head of Clinical Affairs for Siemens Healthineers US molecular diagnostics business, and previously worked at Roche, Abbott, and Medtronic.
“There is enormous potential in expanding the reach of global drug and vaccine discovery by including more diverse populations in research efforts,” Jenny Yip, Managing Partner of Adjuvant Capital said. “We were impressed by 54gene’s commitment to building a world-class network of African clinicians and geneticists and are excited to work with them as they scale and seek to drive meaningful improvements in global public health.”
In addition to its Series A raise, 54gene is also announcing the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board [SAB]. The SAB is composed of global leaders in clinical genetics, bioinformatics, and data science; Michael F. Murray MD, Director of Clinical Operations, Center for Genomic Health Professor Dept of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, Manuel Rivas PhD, Assistant Professor at Stanford University, Greg Hinkle PhD, VP Research Informatics, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Jeff Hammerbacher, Founder and General Partner, Related Sciences.
54gene currently works with 300+ researchers, clinicians, and geneticists across the continent, to improve the global collective knowledge of genomic determinants of health and to facilitate translational research. The company has also built an African Biobank, a state-of-the-art biorepository that stores biological samples to provide access to aggregated, de-identified data and bio-specimen mainly for secondary use by researchers, to support both academic and development research.
“This funding comes at a historically meaningful time, allowing us to deliver global impact through continued investment in research and strategic partnerships with leaders in the biomedical industry. We want to support the crucial work of our partners in Africa while improving global health and are committed to promoting a safe, ethical and beneficial research practice,” Ene-Obong said.
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