Personalis, Inc., a leader in advanced genomics for cancer, has received a new task order under its contract with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for the VA’s Million Veteran Program (VA MVP). This is the largest single task order the company has received to date and has a value of up to approximately $38.1M, subject to the receipt of samples from the VA MVP and performance of services by Personalis. The cumulative value of task orders received to date from the VA MVP has increased to approximately $145M.
Founded in 2011, headquartered in Menlo Park, California, Personalis, Inc. is a growing cancer genomics company transforming the development of next-generation therapies by providing more comprehensive molecular data about each patient’s cancer and immune response. The company’s NeXT™ Platform is designed to adapt to the complex and evolving understanding of cancer, providing its biopharmaceutical customers with information on all of the approximately 20,000 human genes, together with the immune system, from a single tissue sample. Personalis also provides genomic information to the VA MVP as part of their goal to sequence over a million veteran genomes. The Personalis Clinical Laboratory is GxP aligned as well as CLIA’88-certified and CAP-accredited.
Launched in 2011, MVP is a landmark research effort aimed at better understanding how genetic variations affect health. The VA’s central biorepository is equipped with a state-of-the-art robotic system for DNA extraction and storage and is currently being expanded to support up to 4 million samples. Up to a million Veterans are expected to enroll in the VA study by 2021. Data and genetic samples collected through the program are stored securely and made available for studies by authorized researchers, with stringent safeguards in place to protect Veterans’ private health information.
Personalis was first contracted by the VA MVP to provide DNA sequencing and data analysis services in 2012. Since then, Personalis has invested in technology and infrastructure to expand its high-volume capabilities and has developed sophisticated data systems for sample tracking, processing, and for managing large amounts of genetic data.
“We are proud of our continuing relationship with the VA MVP, which represents the largest portion of our revenue. Given the current backlog of VA MVP samples in-house and the additional samples we may receive under this new task order, we expect that over the next several quarters our VA MVP business will account for a higher proportion of our total revenue than previously expected. Our experience delivering cutting-edge solutions for biopharma customers has allowed us to deliver a differentiated service to the VA MVP. Additionally, our VA MVP business is well aligned with our oncology business: efficient high-quality processing of tens of thousands of samples is important to both and we expect cancer sequencing to move to whole genome over time. Our work at the forefront of oncology has allowed us to develop the technologies and skillsets that help us support the VA MVP.” – John West, CEO, Personalis
Sources
