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Biotech startup Syndicate Bio, SOPHiA GENETICS partner on biopsy for cancer diagnostics

Nigerian biotech startup Syndicate Bio has partnered SOPHiA GENETICS, a cloud-native software company in the healthcare space and a leader in data-driven medicine, to become the first lab in Africa to make comprehensive genomic profiling and liquid biopsy widely available to patients throughout the entire continent.

Launched in September by Dr Abasi Ene-Obong, previously founder and CEO of the now-defunct Nigerian genomics startup 54gene, alongside Dr Jumi Popoola and Estelle Dogbo, Syndicate Bio is leveraging collaborations with governments, pharmaceutical companies, academia and other key industry stakeholders to deepen local precision medicine impact while generating invaluable datasets that improve global health outcomes and accelerates drug discovery and development.

The company, which in November announced a strategic partnership with the National Institute for Cancer Research and Treatment (NICRAT) to initiate the Cancer Genome Nigeria project. The implementation of the new genomic profiling and liquid biopsy technology will further existing work from SOPHiA GENETICS, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), and Syndicate Bio to advance health equity on a global scale.

“Partnering with SOPHiA Genetics to bring MSK-ACCESS powered with SOPHiA DDM to our lab is a monumental step in accelerating the cancer treatment and research landscape across Africa, beginning in Nigeria. Next-generation sequencing technologies in oncology and liquid biopsy, which this collaboration enables, hold the potential for creating a leapfrogging opportunity in the oncology treatment and research landscape in Africa,” said Ene-Obong.

“Through this collaboration, we aim to enable the widespread application of precision medicine in oncology across Africa, and thus contributing to the improvement of patient outcomes across the African continent. We believe our scientific expertise, combined with AI-enabled technologies and data-driven solutions enabled by SOPHiA GENETICS, presents a unique opportunity to fundamentally transform the journey of cancer patients through non-invasive cancer analysis, predictive genetic testing, and effective precision medicine.”