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28 May 2014
iBinom: Team Working on a Grand Idea to Increase Life Expectancy
Andrey Afanasiev, CEO of iBinom, a provider of genetic data medical interpretation service, has told us about how IT can extend our lifespan. Last year, his startup company became a finalist in the GenerationS Accelerator Contest organized by the Moscow Center for Innovative Development and the Russian Venture Company (RVC).
The Idea
I first became really interested in biological data processing several years ago, after talking with Nikolai Vyakhkha, founder of the Bioinformatics Research Institute in St. Petersburg. He inspires everyone with this idea. I started watching carefully and studying what was going on in this area. I talked to bioinformatics experts and geneticists, trying to find a straightforward way to analyze the data in the human genome. And these were the conclusions we reached. First, one needs to do data processing in the cloud – it just is a lot faster. Second, the interface should be medical doctor-friendly. Our project does not target the general public, it is intended for the professional medical community instead. However, it can bring benefits for everyone, as ultimately we help doctors to diagnose conditions correctly, identify congenital diseases, including the more complicated cases.
Essentially, we are bringing closer the times of personalized medicine, when people are going to receive treatment not based on some average standards, but rather, every one will receive the medication most suitable for him- or herself, given their genetic profile. I hope this will help to increase human life expectancy even more. After all, it has nearly doubled in the past 50 years. It gives me pleasure to be in the thick of things, and it is great to have a grand idea to guide your work.
The Team
My whole team and I are very highly motivated. As the guys say who used to do pure math or programming, “It is a great feeling to build something that directly helps people!” In our case, this means diagnosing disease and helping with treatment.
I like the people I work with – they really are an awesome team. Not only professionally, but also on a personal level. Putting together the team was valuable experience to me in its own right. I learned to pick people, motivate them, and retain them. People are really prepared to sacrifice their time for a grand idea, because they have to work much longer hours on our team than the industry average.
The Solution
There are a number of different ways to analyze genome data, and many startups are active in this area. However, for now, our solution is the only one that can do it “by a single button click”: all the doctor has to do is load the data.
The doctor would order DNA sequencing for a patient, which yields about 500 GB of data per person. We process these data, with data processing and storage both taking place in the cloud. We identify the mutations – the differences in the person whose DNA we are analyzing from someone who is healthy, focusing on the mutations which can affect the presence of a congenital disease in this person. With knowledge of these mutations, the doctor can take an educated, well substantiated medical decision.
Investors
When we first got the idea for this project, we sent an application for Bortnik’s Foundation Start Contest, and received RUB 1 million through this program in January 2013. In March 2013, we became a resident of the Moscow State University Business Incubator, receiving pre-seed stage business incubator investments. Altair Capital and LETA Capital invested in us alongside the MSU. Later on, additional investments from LETA Capital enabled us to complete our product development and produce a beta version, gather feedback, visit the US, and get the first users for our service in Russia and overseas. Also in 2013, we became a GenerationS semifinalist, and then, a finalist. The Accelerator Contest helped us to get introductions to venture capital industry players, receiving positive (and legal) insider information: how to market ourselves properly, how to target our segments, and on which markets to sell our product.
The Future
We are not making money in sufficient quantities yet, we only get one-off orders. Therefore, right now, we are looking for a new round of investments in marketing and sales development. It would take US$ 400,000 to enter the US market. Russia has practically no bioinformatics market like this; we work here with projects and labs only in exchange for feedback. We are planning to enter the US market and start making money this year.
In addition, we are developing solutions not only for diagnosing congenital disease, but also for analyzing transcripts of cancerous tumors. We are planning to enter the malignant growth diagnostics market in 2015. This is a very interesting market from a business perspective. There is not much money in it yet, but it has a lot of very smart people. The medical IT market is very young. The first high-performance sequencers appeared six years ago, and sequencing became affordable and available to the mass audience only about 2–3 years ago. Now it costs a shade over US$ 1,000 to read one’s genome. Associated technologies are expanding into clinical segment on a massive scale, there are deals happening, mergers, acquisitions, and a lot of stuff that is quite promising. It is a very interesting market to be part of, to watch where it is heading and grow with the market.
This story is based on an interview that first appeared online on Rusbase.vs
I first became really interested in biological data processing several years ago, after talking with Nikolai Vyakhkha, founder of the Bioinformatics Research Institute in St. Petersburg. He inspires everyone with this idea. I started watching carefully and studying what was going on in this area. I talked to bioinformatics experts and geneticists, trying to find a straightforward way to analyze the data in the human genome. And these were the conclusions we reached. First, one needs to do data processing in the cloud – it just is a lot faster. Second, the interface should be medical doctor-friendly. Our project does not target the general public, it is intended for the professional medical community instead. However, it can bring benefits for everyone, as ultimately we help doctors to diagnose conditions correctly, identify congenital diseases, including the more complicated cases.
Essentially, we are bringing closer the times of personalized medicine, when people are going to receive treatment not based on some average standards, but rather, every one will receive the medication most suitable for him- or herself, given their genetic profile. I hope this will help to increase human life expectancy even more. After all, it has nearly doubled in the past 50 years. It gives me pleasure to be in the thick of things, and it is great to have a grand idea to guide your work.
The Team
My whole team and I are very highly motivated. As the guys say who used to do pure math or programming, “It is a great feeling to build something that directly helps people!” In our case, this means diagnosing disease and helping with treatment.
I like the people I work with – they really are an awesome team. Not only professionally, but also on a personal level. Putting together the team was valuable experience to me in its own right. I learned to pick people, motivate them, and retain them. People are really prepared to sacrifice their time for a grand idea, because they have to work much longer hours on our team than the industry average.
The Solution
There are a number of different ways to analyze genome data, and many startups are active in this area. However, for now, our solution is the only one that can do it “by a single button click”: all the doctor has to do is load the data.
The doctor would order DNA sequencing for a patient, which yields about 500 GB of data per person. We process these data, with data processing and storage both taking place in the cloud. We identify the mutations – the differences in the person whose DNA we are analyzing from someone who is healthy, focusing on the mutations which can affect the presence of a congenital disease in this person. With knowledge of these mutations, the doctor can take an educated, well substantiated medical decision.
Investors
When we first got the idea for this project, we sent an application for Bortnik’s Foundation Start Contest, and received RUB 1 million through this program in January 2013. In March 2013, we became a resident of the Moscow State University Business Incubator, receiving pre-seed stage business incubator investments. Altair Capital and LETA Capital invested in us alongside the MSU. Later on, additional investments from LETA Capital enabled us to complete our product development and produce a beta version, gather feedback, visit the US, and get the first users for our service in Russia and overseas. Also in 2013, we became a GenerationS semifinalist, and then, a finalist. The Accelerator Contest helped us to get introductions to venture capital industry players, receiving positive (and legal) insider information: how to market ourselves properly, how to target our segments, and on which markets to sell our product.
The Future
We are not making money in sufficient quantities yet, we only get one-off orders. Therefore, right now, we are looking for a new round of investments in marketing and sales development. It would take US$ 400,000 to enter the US market. Russia has practically no bioinformatics market like this; we work here with projects and labs only in exchange for feedback. We are planning to enter the US market and start making money this year.
In addition, we are developing solutions not only for diagnosing congenital disease, but also for analyzing transcripts of cancerous tumors. We are planning to enter the malignant growth diagnostics market in 2015. This is a very interesting market from a business perspective. There is not much money in it yet, but it has a lot of very smart people. The medical IT market is very young. The first high-performance sequencers appeared six years ago, and sequencing became affordable and available to the mass audience only about 2–3 years ago. Now it costs a shade over US$ 1,000 to read one’s genome. Associated technologies are expanding into clinical segment on a massive scale, there are deals happening, mergers, acquisitions, and a lot of stuff that is quite promising. It is a very interesting market to be part of, to watch where it is heading and grow with the market.
This story is based on an interview that first appeared online on Rusbase.vs
