Claritas Genomics and NextCODE Health Partner to Accelerate the Use of Genome Analysis for Children with Rare Diseases

- NextCODE's integrated diagnostic and research capabilities will enhance the speed, power and breadth of Claritas' sequence-based testing at unrivalled scale

- Partnership advances Claritas' mission to provide leading-edge genetic testing for patients and bring new discoveries swiftly into clinical practice

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts, Dec. 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- To rapidly expand the use and power of genomic sequencing for diagnosing and treating rare diseases, Claritas Genomics and NextCODE Health today announced a strategic partnership bringing together global leadership in pediatric medicine and sequence analysis. Claritas Genomics, affiliated with Boston Children's Hospital, is a CLIA-certified clinical laboratory serving the DNA-based diagnostic testing needs of children's hospitals that admit hundreds of thousands of patients with genetic disorders every year. NextCODE's solutions have been developed and proven on the world's largest collection of genome sequence data.

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Claritas selected NextCODE's integrated clinical and research platform after a thorough evaluation of the leading solutions in the field. NextCODE will enable Claritas to speed the delivery of genetic test results for more children and support building a seamless connection between research and clinical care. Using NextCODE's unique database architecture, Claritas can build up an efficient, centralized, cloud-based variant database to help solve the toughest cases and discover new disease genes.

"One of the early challenges physicians and children's families face is understanding the information in genetic tests and what it means for their child's health and care," says Patrice Milos, Chief Executive Officer of Claritas. "NextCODE's system supports identification of known mutations, enables us to rapidly home in on novel ones, and visualize them on screen, linking the sequencing information to our information on the child's clinical condition."

"Claritas Genomics has strong ties to some of the world's leading pediatric hospitals and the clinical and research expertise of Boston Children's and Harvard Medical School," said Jeffrey Gulcher, MD, PhD, President and CSO of NextCODE. "We are proud they have chosen our platform and will make full use of its capabilities: delivering diagnoses and expert interpretation using raw sequence data in real time, and advancing research and turning new findings into benefits for patients in the clinic."

Genomic sequencing can now generate the raw data required to diagnose most rare diseases. The challenge is to quickly turn that data into accurate diagnoses and treatment options. Claritas and its researchers have developed over a hundred validated tests for single genes associated with pediatric disorders as well as dynamic whole exome-based tests. These tests have been integrated directly into NextCODE's clinical interface, enabling the Claritas team to use the available proprietary and public data integrated into the NextCODE system. This rapidly informs the creation of clinical reports for delivery to ordering clinical providers and families.

About NextCODE Healh
NextCODE puts the world's most proven sequence analysis platform and most efficient database architecture in the hands of clinicians and researchers around the globe, enabling them to use the full power of NGS data to better diagnose and treat disease. Our solutions combine the only whole-genome analysis system developed at population scale with access to the largest clinical genetics reference database in the world. That gives our partners the ability to solve more cases more efficiently, to store, analyze, visualize and collaborate using all their data – at base-by-base resolution, in real time, from any browser. NextCODE is a private company co-founded by former deCODE genetics executives Jeff Gulcher and Hannes Smarason and headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts. www.nextcode.com

About Claritas Genomics
Claritas Genomics is a clinical genetic diagnostic testing company that combines the clinical expertise of the world's best pediatric specialists with next generation sequencing technology to inform and improve patient care. Claritas offers a full range of services that take the guesswork out of selecting molecular tests and support clinicians as they navigate the increasingly complex landscape of genetic diagnostics. Claritas's interpretive services are based on the most up to date and reliable findings and the Claritas reports are designed to clearly communicate complex genetic information to guide medical treatment. Originally Boston Children's Hospital's clinical molecular testing laboratory, Claritas was launched as an independent laboratory in February 2013.

Contacts:

NextCODE
Edward Farmer, PhD
efarmer@nextcode.com
(781) 775 6206

Claritas
Nurjana Bachman, PhD
Nurjana.Bachman@claritasgenomics.com
(617) 553 5803