Illumina, Nashville Biosciences announce sequencing agreement with Amgen

Illumina (ILMN) and Nashville Biosciences, a wholly owned subsidiary of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, announced an agreement with Amgen (AMGN) to whole-genome sequence approximately 35,000 DNA samples. The sample cohort is primarily made up of DNA from African Americans, who are currently underrepresented in research for the clinical applications of genomics, including drug target discovery. This cohort will be the largest data set of genomes of its kind to date. Sequencing this set of samples is the first in Illumina and Nashville Biosciences’ Alliance for Genomic Discovery, a multiyear agreement to accelerate therapeutic development through large-scale genomics and establish a preeminent clinico-genomic data set. As part of the agreement, deCODE genetics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Amgen, will perform whole-genome sequencing on the 35,000 samples using Illumina sequencing technologies and will upload the data to the Illumina Connected Analytics platform.