Spokane biotech firm gets boost
A Spokane biotech company that has developed a diagnostic tool used by geneticists and doctors to identify or treat diseases has expanded its service line by licensing medical technology from a California firm.
Signature Genomic Laboratories recently obtained a license from Santa Clara-based Affymetrix, Inc., to expand Signature’s key diagnostic tool, called the SignatureChip, and make it more effective, said Lisa Shaffer, acting CEO of the Spokane company.
The product is used to identify or help treat medical conditions that are tied to chromosome abnormalities.
“This allows us to move forward with our next chip,” said Shaffer. The upgrade should be completed this year, she said.
Shaffer is co-founder, along with Dr. Bassem Bejjani, of Signature Genomic Laboratories. The firm’s SignatureChip is a cytogenetic microarray, a cluster of DNA material attached to a glass microscope slide. The microarray material contains 140 regions of human DNA that are known to cause genetic syndromes, birth defects or mental retardation if present in an unbalanced state.
When doctors send samples from patients, the SignatureChip can identify areas of patient DNA that match or correspond to the target DNA “probes” on the slide.
Announced this week, the licensing deal allows Signature Genomic Laboratories to create a denser collection of chromosomal probes on the SignatureChip. The result, according to Shaffer, is a genetic “wider net” for helping diagnose and treat diseases and disorders.
The next version will be launched at the American College of Medical Genetics meeting in late March in San Diego. The test costs $1,650.
Bejjani and Shaffer are both researchers at Washington State University Spokane, in addition to running Signature Genomics. Coincidentally, Shaffer and Stephen Fodor, the founder of Affymetrix, both graduated from WSU.
Terms of the licensing agreement with Affymetrix were not disclosed.
This is the first licensing deal signed by Signature Genomic Laboratories, which was launched in 2003 with funding from Sacred Heart Medical Center and Pathology Associates Medical Laboratories.