Qiagen and ITMI to launch new genomic database

Qiagen has announced a new partnership with the Inova Translational Medicine Institute (ITMI) to launch a compendium of whole-genome sequencing data.

Inova Genomes is a database of ethnically, phenotypically and ancestrally diverse whole-genome sequencing information that can be used in cohort analysis programmes or to improve success rates in diagnostic odyssey cases.

Built by ITMI from a collection of more than 7,000 whole genomes derived from over 2,800 families, the resource is expected to be hugely valuable for future medical and disease research efforts.

Qiagen will be the exclusive distributor of the database, which is to be made accessible via the company's secure and integrated Ingenuity Variant Analysis and CLC Biomedical Genomics Workbench platforms.

Dr Douglas Bassett, chief science and technology officer for Qiagen's bioinformatics business area, said: "We are honored to collaborate with ITMI to make this new big data offering available for the benefit of therapeutic discovery and patient care around the world."

This comes after the firm last month announced a new technology sharing partnership with BGI, the world's largest genomics organisation.