BioNano Genomics Signs Two New Distributors For The Asia-Pacific Region And Announces First Irys System Placement In Korea To ChunLab

SAN DIEGO, SEOUL, South Korea and MELBOURNE, Australia, July 16, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- BioNano Genomics announced today the selection of two new distributors, MDxK and Millennium Science, for the Irys^TM System in the Asia-Pacific region. Based in Seoul, MDxK is one of the premier life science instrumentation distributors for Korea and has already sold the first system to ChunLab. Millennium Science, well known throughout Australia and New Zealand as a top genomics technology distributor, will market and support the Irys System in those two countries. The first institution to acquire the Irys System in this region, announced previously, was the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney. With the signing of these two new distributors, BioNano Genomics continues to expand the company's global footprint and provide access to the Irys System for genomics researchers to complete genomes and study structural variation.

"The Asia-Pacific region is in the midst of significant growth in genomics research which will demand integrated solutions to enable comprehensive exploration and comparison of genomes," said Todd Dickinson, Ph.D., vice president, Global Commercial Operations at BioNano Genomics. "We are thrilled to welcome MDxK and Millennium Science as key extensions to the BioNano team. Working with MDxK and Millennium Science, we will be able to serve all needs in these two Asia-Pacific regions for the Irys System, a single platform that provides an innovative, highly accurate genome map solution to rapidly identify structural variation, quickly assemble and complete de novo complex genomes, and perform comparative genomics studies."

Managing Director of Millennium Science, Mr. Bren Collinson, adds: "Our whole team is very excited about bringing the Irys System to our market as it will add another valuable dimension to the research that many of our genomics customers are currently performing. We have already received several enquiries about the system from the leading research facilities across Australia and New Zealand."

ChunLab, Inc. is the first next generation sequencing and bioinformatics service provider in South Korea to purchase the Irys System. The company plans to leverage the platform to advance its bioinformatics service and enable the finishing and scaffolding of highly complex genomes from bacteria to eukaryote at a more precise, efficient and cost-effective manner.

"A complete genome is essential in understanding the biological relevance of organisms. However, due to the inherent limitations of next generation sequencing such as GC bias and structural variation, de novo genome assembly is still a complex and time-consuming process. I am excited to purchase the Irys System for its ability to map any organism. I expect the system will help us more accurately and easily perform and validate assemblies," says Dr. Jongsik Chun, CEO of ChunLab. "More importantly the Irys system will give meaningful advancements to ChunLab's genomic research."

BioNano Genomics' Irys System creates a high-quality genome map to complete genome assembly and annotation and provides a single platform to perform comprehensive structural variation studies.  Genome maps built with the Irys System reveal the biologically and clinically significant order and orientation of functionally relevant components of complex genomes including genes, promoters, regulatory elements, the length and location of long regions of repeats as well as viral integration sites across the entire genome. Assembling such a comprehensive view of a genome has previously been a major hurdle because a significant portion of information about repetitive elements and structural variations are lost with next generation sequencing (NGS) methods.

About Irys System

The Irys System makes it possible to routinely and accurately detect genomic structural variation and to finish genome assemblies. The fully automated Irys benchtop instrument uses the IrysChip^TM to uncoil and confine long DNA molecules in proprietary Nanochannel Arrays™ where they are uniformly linearized in a highly parallel display for high-resolution, single-molecule imaging. Irys does not employ DNA fragmentation or amplification, which are typical with next-generation sequencing. The result is sequence information over extremely long "reads" ranging from hundreds of kilobases to a megabase, where the sample's valuable structural information is preserved. Irys makes it possible for researchers to directly observe structural variants including replications, deletions, translocations and inversions.

About BioNano Genomics

Headquartered in San Diego, BioNano Genomics is delivering an altogether better way of gaining a fully informed understanding of genomes. The Company's platform provides researchers and clinicians the most comprehensive, organized and actionable picture of a genome with unprecedented insights into how the individual components of genomes are ordered, arranged, and interact with each other. BioNano Genomics works with institutions in life science, translational research, molecular diagnostics and personalized medicine. The Company is supported by private investors and grant funding from genomics programs at federal agencies, including the NIH and NIST-ATP.

www.BioNanoGenomics.com

Notes: BioNano Genomics is a trademark of BioNano Genomics, Inc. Any other names of actual companies, organizations, entities, products or services may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE BioNano Genomics