Improving the diversity of global genomic information can accelerate medical advances – and this is the goal of Genetics, a Brazilian biotech startup that is working to develop genetic information from the country’s population.
For Ligia da Vega Pereira, the company’s founder, it’s more than building a company, but it’s about advancing science and medical technology.
“The field continues to say we need diversity, but most of the world is diverse countries. [the] Less developed health systems,” Perera said in an interview with TechCrunch. The lack of diversity became kind of the mantra of the field and I saw an opportunity because what Brazil has to offer is with our diversity.
Without disaggregating that information, Pereira said, it can’t lead to major medical advances.
“When you study a population with a different ancestry than Europeans, the chance of making new discoveries about genes associated with different phenotypes increases, simply because it’s uncharted territory,” she says.
Gent-t has partnered with Dr. Consulta, a network of medical centers in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, to recruit participants for the initiative. Currently, the company has efforts in four clinics in São Paulo and more than 200 active participants, although it is still new, having soft launched in June. Patients must provide informed consent before any test is performed.
Gen-t wants to have more than 200,000 participants and stay in touch with each of them for at least five years. Currently, the company is looking for participants aged 45 and over.
The idea of making genomic data more inclusive is big considering the company has reached its enterprise goal of 200,000 participants. Companies like 54gene and Nucleus Genomics are also fighting this uphill battle.
In addition to private efforts, the Pan American Health Organization has been conducting genomic and health research in Latin America. But recent efforts at PAHO have focused on the Covid-19 pandemic.
Gen-t raised 10 million Brazilian reals ($2 million) in a pre-seed funding round led by Eduardo Mufarage alongside Arminio Fraga, Daniel Gold of QVT Financial LP and Roivant Science.
Funds from this round will go towards building startup technical teams and launching clinical research.
The road to diverse genomic data may be long, but Pereira hopes this initiative will inspire others to find ways to contribute.
“We’re working on building a model to make the platform accessible to academia … because the more people who do research on our population’s genetics, the better it is for the public and for science in general,” she said.
