Weekly Tech+Bio Highlights #30: Roche’s Comeback to Sequencing
Also: AI Reshapes Pharmacovigilance, Advances in Aging Research, and more...
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Let’s get to this week’s topics!
Brief Insights
🔬 Ultima Genomics updates its UG 100 Solaris sequencing platform with new chemistry and software upgrades, while introducing Solaris Boost, a high-throughput mode for short-read applications enabling up to 100 billion reads per day.
🔬 Roche unveils a new next-generation sequencing technology that converts DNA into expandable molecules for improved speed, scalability, and accuracy. Initially for research use, the tech is expected to enter the market in 2026, marking Roche’s return to the sequencing space.
🚀 Achira launches with $33M in funding, backed by NVIDIA, to develop AI-powered atomistic foundation models for drug discovery. The company aims to combine AI-driven physics simulations with scalable computation to transform molecular modeling.
🔬 Illumina and the Broad Institute launch a spatial transcriptomics project using Illumina’s new high-resolution platform.
🚀 Spore.Bio raises €23M to advance its AI-powered handheld pathogen scanner, which uses UV-Infrared light and deep learning to detect bacterial contamination instantly.
🔬 Insilico Medicine researchers identify TNIK inhibition as a potential way to curb inflammatory aging.
🚀 Amid federal research cuts, Recursion’s Altitude Lab launches a pre-seed fund to support SBIR-reviewed biotech startups facing grant delays. The fund offers up to $250K, lab space, and mentorship.
💰 Incyte partners with Genesis Therapeutics in an AI-driven drug discovery deal, paying $30M upfront in a collaboration worth up to $885M.
🚀 EIT is launching the Generative Biology Institute in 2025 at Oxford Science Park, aiming to engineer biology for advancements in medicine, agriculture, and climate solutions. The institute will host 300+ researchers, integrate AI, and collaborate with Oxford’s biotech ecosystem.
🔬 npj Aging has published a meeting report on the ARDD Emerging Science & Technologies Workshop, highlighting advances in AI-driven aging research, neurotechnology, cryopreservation, and synthetic biology.
🔬 Harbour BioMed and Insilico Medicine partner to accelerate AI-driven antibody discovery, combining Insilico’s AI expertise with Harbour’s immunology, oncology, and neuroscience capabilities.
💰 Variational AI raises $5.5M to expand its AI foundation model for small molecule drug discovery. Enki generates and optimizes novel molecular structures without large virtual libraries, using active learning and Bayesian optimization.
🔬 St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital reports the first in-utero treatment for spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) using Roche’s risdiplam. Administered prenatally, the small-molecule therapy increased SMN protein levels, with the now 2.5-year-old child showing no signs of SMA.
🔬 Epitopea partners with Merck in a research collaboration to identify Cryptigen tumor-specific antigens for immunotherapy, with potential milestone payments of up to $300M per product.
🚀 Subsense launches with $17M to develop a non-surgical, nanoparticle-based brain-computer interface, aiming to treat neurological conditions like Parkinson’s, epilepsy, and depression. The company is collaborating with UC Santa Cruz and ETH Zurich to accelerate development.
💰 Atrandi Biosciences raises $25M to advance its single-cell multiomics technology using semi-permeable capsules, which isolate individual cells while allowing molecular exchange.
🔬 Luxa Biotechnology receives FDA RMAT designation for its stem cell therapy aimed at restoring vision in dry age-related macular degeneration patients. Early Phase 1 data showed promise, and Luxa will present clinical findings at the Wills Eye Conference on March 6.
🚀 Cellino, in collaboration with Mass General Brigham, launches the U.S.'s first hospital-based autologous iPSC Foundry, powered by its AI-driven Nebula technology, to enable decentralized, patient-specific cell therapy manufacturing.
🚀 Kinvard Bio launches to develop next-generation antibiotics targeting drug-resistant infections, leveraging Harvard’s Myers Lab research.
🔬 Researchers from Stanford introduce POPPER, an AI agent that automates hypothesis validation through falsification experiments, achieving PhD-level performance in biology while being 9.7x faster than human experts.
🔬 Microsoft's BioEmu, a deep learning-based biomolecular emulator, is now open-source under the MIT license, enabling broader use in protein structure research and simulation.
🔬 Mount Sinai researchers develop lipid nanoparticles that deliver mRNA across the blood-brain barrier, enabling potential treatments for Alzheimer's, ALS, and brain cancer.
🔬 Researchers from Zhejiang University benchmark AI-powered docking methods for virtual screening, finding that AI tools outperform traditional methods in large-scale screening but struggle with structural accuracy.
💰 British Patient Capital commits £20M to Cambridge Innovation Capital’s £100M Opportunity Fund, supporting UK deep tech and life sciences scale-ups, with initial investments in Pragmatic Semiconductor and Riverlane.
💰 Once valued at $10B, bluebird bio is acquired by Carlyle and SK Capital for $29M, with potential payouts reaching $96M if gene therapy sales hit $600M by 2027, marking a dramatic fall for the biotech pioneer.
🔬 C2N Diagnostics’ blood test receives UK MHRA certification, marking its first global regulatory approval for aiding Alzheimer’s diagnosis with a high-performing blood biomarker test.
💰 OrganOx secures $142M to expand its normothermic machine perfusion technology, which keeps donor livers metabolically active outside the body, increasing transplant success and supporting upcoming kidney and xenotransplantation trials.
🔬 University of Barcelona researchers propose the "less, but more" evolutionary model, showing how gene loss followed by duplication drives adaptation, with insights from the fast-evolving tunicate Oikopleura dioica.
🔬 University of Osaka researchers identify the protein AP2A1 as a key regulator of cellular aging, showing that its suppression reverses senescence while its overexpression accelerates aging.
🔬 A hope for future treatments—phase 1 trial shows that personalized mRNA vaccines can trigger long-lasting immune responses in pancreatic cancer patients, with half producing cancer-fighting T cells.
🔒 Kroll’s 2025 Data Breach Outlook reveals healthcare surpassed finance as the most breached sector in 2024, accounting for 23% of incidents, driven by major attacks like the Change Healthcare breach.
🚨 NIH grant funding remains frozen despite a federal judge’s order to halt cuts to indirect costs, with administrative delays preventing proposal reviews and payments to researchers.
🔬 Solid Biosciences’ next-gen DMD gene therapy shows promising early-phase data, with 78% dystrophin-positive muscle fibers—well above the 40% threshold linked to clinical benefit—boosting hopes for accelerated FDA approval.
🔬 MeiraGTx’s gene therapy improved visual acuity in all 11 children treated for AIPL1-associated retinal dystrophy, with The Lancet reporting substantial benefits in vision and protection against retinal degeneration. The company is seeking expedited approval in the U.K. and U.S.
🔬 Radiance Biopharma enters the ROR1-targeted ADC race, acquiring rights to China’s SYS6005, a potential treatment for blood cancers and solid tumors, aiming to compete with Merck’s frontrunner, which showed a 100% complete response rate in DLBCL.
📢 The FDA has declared an official end to the nationwide shortage of Ozempic and Wegovy. Meanwhile, drug compounders have sued the agency, arguing that shortages persist.
🦠 Recce Pharmaceuticals' synthetic gel successfully treated skin infections in a phase 2 trial, with 93% of patients showing improvement. The broad-spectrum antibiotic, targeting drug-resistant bacteria, is now advancing to phase 3 trials.
💰 VitalConnect raises $100M to expand its wearable heart monitoring technology. The company is also advancing in-hospital remote patient monitoring solutions.
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Roche’s Comeback to Sequencing
Roche is making a comeback in next-generation sequencing (NGS) with Sequencing by Expansion (SBX), a technology designed to tackle speed, scalability, and signal clarity challenges in sequencing. SBX, which integrates innovations from Stratos Genomics and Genia Technologies, was unveiled ahead of the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) conference, accompanied by a webinar led by Mark Kokoris, VP and head of SBX technology at Roche.
At the core of SBX is the Xpandomer, an expanded DNA surrogate that is 50 times longer than standard DNA strands, improving signal resolution in nanopore sequencing. The process uses expandable nucleotide triphosphates (X-NTPs) to encode highly distinguishable reporter signals for precise sequencing.
SBX operates on a CMOS-based sensor array with 8 million microwells, allowing high-throughput, single-molecule sequencing. Roche reports:
Accuracy – F1 scores of 99.80% for SNVs and 99.48% for InDels
Throughput – Seven human genomes per hour at 30X coverage
Flexibility – Read lengths from 50 bp to over 1,000 bp (Simplex) and 150–350 bp (Duplex insert)
Speed – From blood sample to variant call file (VCF) in under seven hours
SBX sequencing uses a reusable sensor module, allowing multiple runs without replacing components, reducing costs for high-throughput applications.
Link to Roche’s AGBT presentation, which covers SBX’s novel chemistry, sensor module, and sequencing flexibility, showcasing throughput for single-cell, spatial, and proteomics applications, adaptable run setups for varying volumes, fast turnaround for NICU and oncology, and integration with whole genome, exome, transcriptome, and multiomics workflows.
SBX will launch for research use only, with early access later this year and a commercial release expected in 2026. Roche hasn’t disclosed pricing or sample prep details but intends to expand SBX into clinical applications over time.
Roche’s deployment of SBX instruments to early access sites (Hartwig Medical Foundation in the Netherlands and the Broad Institute) comes as Illumina, the dominant player in next-generation sequencing, faces mounting challenges, with its stock dropping sharply following the news.
Some observers, like Thibault Geoui, suggest that Illumina could be facing its Kodak/Nokia moment—a dominant leader at risk of disruption. While the company still has a massive installed base (over 20,000 systems worldwide), but competition in the sequencing space is intensifying
How AI Reshapes Pharmacovigilance
We’re pleased to feature a guest post by Dr. Karthik Muthusamy, Senior Director, Head of Expedited Safety Reporting at Bristol Myers Squibb, on how AI is reshaping pharmacovigilance. Dr. Muthusamy explores the industry's shift from traditional drug safety monitoring to AI-driven automation and predictive analytics.
He notes that pharma is drowning in safety data, with the FDA now handling over two million ICSRs annually—a number that has surged since the pandemic. AI isn't just a nice-to-have anymore; AI-driven systems are now automating case validity checks, extracting structured data, and flagging duplicates with high speed. Signal detection is becoming more sophisticated—AI integrates safety data from clinical trials, spontaneous reports, electronic health records, and real-world evidence to improve accuracy. Natural language processing scans medical literature for adverse events, while pattern recognition models sift through unstructured data to catch subtle safety signals before they escalate.
With that, companies still must balance automation with human oversight, ensuring models are explainable and compliant with evolving FDA guidelines like the Emerging Drug Safety Technology Program. The challenge isn’t just adopting AI but integrating it into safety workflows without compromising regulatory rigor.
For a deeper dive, read the full article.
Advances in Aging Research
Maximilian Unfried, Tomas Schmauck-Medina, and colleagues, have published a meeting report in npj Aging on the ARDD Emerging Science & Technologies Workshop, highlighting advances in AI-driven aging research, neurotechnology, cryopreservation, and synthetic biology.
Key takeaways include a surge in AI applications—like 3D facial mapping to pinpoint age-related immune processes, and deep learning models that identify senescent cells and predict cancer risk. Neurotech discussions ranged from whole-brain emulation concepts to neuron-replacement strategies for neurodegenerative diseases. Cryopreservation techniques were also in the spotlight, with AI helping to discover new cryoprotectants that could boost the viability of organ transplants. Meanwhile, synthetic biology highlighted advanced imaging and genetic engineering tools, including expansion microscopy and CRISPR-based microbiome interventions, all aimed at tackling complex aging challenges like protein aggregation and dysbiosis.
The workshop wrapped up with a panel discussion led by Lisa Melton (Nature Biotechnology), drawing attention to the need for system-level thinking in aging research, better utilization of existing technologies, and the promise of single-protein sequencing for high-throughput biomolecular analysis.