Twist Bioscience and Aster Insights Partner on Launch of Next Generation Oncology Panel for Cancer Research
April 27, 2023
Comprehensive capture panel to enable enhanced bioinformatics-based oncology research
South San Francisco, CA and Tampa, FL / April 27, 2023 - Twist Bioscience Corporation (NASDAQ: TWST), a company enabling customers to succeed through its offering of high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, and Aster Insights, a bioinformatics company with the most advanced, direct-patient, lifetime-consented clinicogenomics data to accelerate oncology discovery research, today announced the availability of the AsterExome panel, which can simultaneously enable whole exome sequencing (WES) with additional coverage for target regions known to contain 620 genes associated with cancer. By integrating the panel into Aster Insights’ AVATAR® sequencing program, AsterExome can provide comprehensive analysis in the discovery research market for solid tumor and heme malignancy samples.
“This new panel, built with Twist’s design expertise and custom NGS tools, delivers critical innovation in oncology research, creating greater efficiency and markedly increasing coverage of cancer genes, including those associated with solid tumors, to help expedite discovery,” said Dan Elgort, Chief Data and Analytics Officer of Aster Insights. “With this new tool in our arsenal, we expect to provide a precise, expansive analysis for patient care.”
“We were able to blend targets from Aster Insights with Twist’s Exome 2.0 design to create a custom panel with high accuracy, efficiently designed to enable cancer research,” said Emily M. Leproust, CEO and co-founder of Twist Bioscience. “This custom panel provides balanced coverage of cancer-associated genes that are easily detected, as well as those that often go undetected.”
The AsterExome panel’s unique design helps facilitate identification of copy number variations that are often undetected by standard next-generation sequencing (NGS) panels, which can be helpful in identifying cancers driven by gene amplifications. The panel also maintains somatic mutation detection accuracy, sensitivity, and precision for the discovery of a wide range of somatic alterations.
The AsterExome panel will be integrated into Aster Insights’ AVATAR program, which can enable informatics-based analysis of paired tumor and germline DNA and RNA sequencing data from patients consented via the Total Cancer Care® (TCC) protocol. Aster Insight’s real-world AVATAR data set comes from its Oncology Research Information Exchange Network® (ORIEN) partners, an alliance of 18 of the nation’s top cancer centers across more than a dozen U.S. states. ORIEN focuses on collaborative research to accelerate the development and discovery of treatments for advanced stage cancers and improve clinical outcomes for cancer patients worldwide. To date, more than 360,000 patients across ORIEN member sites have provided lifetime consent using the TCC protocol.
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About Aster Insights
Aster Insights is a leading oncology-focused bioinformatics solutions company advancing precision medicine and transforming cancer care through clinical and molecular data and analytics tools. The company’s innovative dataset accelerates the discovery, development, and delivery of personalized therapies. Aster Insights is the only bioinformatics company that has lifetime, patient-consented longitudinal clinical data, coupled with whole exome (WES) and whole transcriptome (WTS) sequencing, for both tumor and germline data. Aster Insight's Oncology Research Information Exchange Network® (ORIEN), an alliance of NCI-Designated cancer centers that gather de-identified and lifetime-consented clinical and genomic patient data for research purposes, enables a collaborative approach to medical product discovery. Learn more at www.AsterInsights.com and follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.
About Twist Bioscience Corporation
Twist Bioscience is a leading and rapidly growing synthetic biology and genomics company that has developed a disruptive DNA synthesis platform to industrialize the engineering of biology. The core of the platform is a proprietary technology that pioneers a new method of manufacturing synthetic DNA by “writing” DNA on a silicon chip. Twist is leveraging its unique technology to manufacture a broad range of synthetic DNA-based products, including synthetic genes, tools for next-generation sequencing (NGS) preparation, and antibody libraries for drug discovery and development. Twist is also pursuing longer-term opportunities in digital data storage in DNA and biologics drug discovery. Twist makes products for use across many industries including healthcare, industrial chemicals, agriculture and academic research.
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Twist Bioscience Legal Notice Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained herein are forward-looking statements reflecting the current beliefs and expectations of management made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements regarding the accuracy and efficiency of the AsterExome panel. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other important factors that may cause Twist Bioscience’s actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Such risks and uncertainties include, among others, the risks and uncertainties relating to COVID-19; the ability to attract new customers and retain and grow sales from existing customers; risks and uncertainties of rapidly changing technologies and extensive competition in synthetic biology that could make the products Twist Bioscience is developing obsolete or non-competitive; uncertainties of the retention of significant customers; the ability of Twist Bioscience to successfully integrate acquired companies, including Abveris, and to achieve expected benefits from acquisitions; supply chain and other disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic or otherwise; risks of third party claims alleging infringement of patents and proprietary rights or seeking to invalidate Twist Bioscience’s patents or proprietary rights; and the risk that Twist Bioscience’s proprietary rights may be insufficient to protect its technologies. For a description of the risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ from those expressed in these forward-looking statements, as well as risks relating to Twist Bioscience’s business in general, see Twist Bioscience’s risk factors set forth in Twist Bioscience’s Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on February 7, 2023 and subsequent filings with the SEC. Any forward-looking statements contained in this press release speak only as of the date hereof, and Twist Bioscience specifically disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.