BioNano Genomics announces $10M financing for development of Irys System for genome analysis

BioNano Genomics announced today a $10 million financing to support the ongoing development and commercialization of the Irys^TM System for human genome analysis.  Current investors, Battelle Ventures, Domain Associates, Gund Investment Corporation, participated in the financing.

"BioNano Genomics has made significant progress in commercializing the Irys System first in the U.S. and then in China and Europe, to expand the global access to the power of its long-read capabilities," said Tracy Warren, general partner of Battelle Ventures. "We continue our support of BioNano so that scientists and clinicians will have better tools to investigate the clinical significance of genome variation."

"We have demonstrated that the Irys System can scale to larger, more complex genomes, including human," said Erik Holmlin, Ph.D., president and CEO of Bionano Genomics.  "Our scientific achievements combined with this new financing pave the way to expand our commercialization efforts and the capabilities of Irys."

The Irys System allows direct observation of native genomic structure through imaging of extremely long molecules. This capability enables detection of structural variation and significantly improves genome assemblies and phasing haplotypes.  This demonstrated ability of Irys to scale to large genomes is key to its utility throughout human genomics and epigenomics for biomedical disease research and diagnostic development.