Benzinga | Jul 6, 2021 08:08AM EDT

Bionano Genomics Highlights WeHealth Shanghai's Adoption Pf Bionano's Saphyr System

Bionano Genomics, Inc. (NASDAQ:BNGO) announced significant progress in China with the adoption of its Saphyr(r) System for optical genome mapping (OGM) by WeHealth Shanghai, a leading provider of genome analysis services in reproductive health. The adoption was announced at the Structural Variation Symposium in Shanghai, organized with support from the Shanghai Society of Genetics. WeHealth announced the launch of its complete genome-analysis offering with OGM combined with whole-exome or whole-genome sequencing.



The Structural Variation Symposium also featured a series of scientific presentations covering a wide range of applications of OGM in genome analysis. Multiple presentations were delivered on reproductive health, a significant need and opportunity in China with approximately 16 million births annually. Dr. Xiangdong Kong from The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University used OGM for prenatal testing in families with a history of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a form of muscular dystrophy. Since the current standard of care for FSHD analysis uses an antiquated technology requiring quantities of DNA far greater than can be collected by amniocentesis, prenatal testing for FSHD has not occurred in China. Using OGM, Dr. Kong successfully analyzed 12 prenatal specimens for FSHD, representing an opportunity to redefine the standard of care in China regarding FSHD analysis with OGM.

Dr. Miao Jiang from The First Affiliated Hospital of Soochow University studied the blood clotting disorder hemophilia A. Approximately 40% of hemophilia A cases are caused by a large inversion in the gene for the blood clotting factor F8. Currently, the diagnostic workflow for hemophilia A testing consists of a combination of two types of polymerase chain reaction (PCR), multiplex ligation-dependent probe amplification (MLPA), Sanger sequencing and a custom next-generation sequencing (NGS) panel. Dr. Jiang showed that OGM can replace four traditional techniques with a single assay, and that OGM combined with the NGS panel has the potential to be the new standard for hemophilia A testing.

Dr. Chenming Xu from the Obstetrics & Gynecology Hospital of Fudan University used OGM to analyze the genomes of parents suffering from recurrent pregnancy loss (RPL) in the context of preimplantation genetic testing. OGM was able to successfully identify structural variants in the parents at sufficiently high resolution so that subsequent embryo selection using PCR was possible, bypassing the need for fluorescent in-situ hybridization (FISH) for the selection of embryos, which is comparably slower and requires custom probes, which are expensive.

"This week's WeHealth symposium demonstrates the success of our market development efforts in China", commented Erik Holmlin, PhD, CEO of Bionano Genomics. "We are seeing both a growth in Saphyr adoption and an expansion of its applications. The China market is important in part because it represents one of the world's largest in reproductive health and genetics. We continue to invest in our commercial operations in China, driven by our new commercial leaders, CCO Jason Priar and China business leader Li Yu. We look forward to seeing continued progress in China as a result of these efforts."