Paving the Way for Personalized Healthcare and Precision Medicine Development: Genetica®

Genetica^® is a biotech company that provides AI-powered genetic testing services. Founded in 2017, the company analyzes and decodes genes to help with personalized nutrition, disease prevention, and child development planning. Genetica^® is empowered by scientists from the world’s leading universities, including UCSF, Harvard, Stanford, and Cornell. The company with its proprietary technology, incubated by these leading scientists and administrators, has quickly attracted the attention of Silicon Valley's most savvy technology investors. With already a strong foothold in South East Asia (Singapore and Vietnam), Genetica^® aims to serve clients across the United States.

The Silicon Review reached out to Genetica’s San Francisco headquarters and spoke with Cao Anh Tuan, who serves as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. Here’s what he said.

Interview Highlights

Q. Given that Genetica^® is one of the fastest-growing direct-to-consumer gene-testing technology companies in the region, how uniquely does it serve the Asian population toward the inevitable precision medicine and personalized preventative care?

Our proprietary gene decoding chips have been recognized by world-leading gene test provider, Thermo Fisher, to be one of the most intensive in decoding Asian genomes. Since the end of 2018, nearly 100,000 Asian users have trusted Genetica^® with our services.

Every genetic test is limited by the variants being tested, thus, it is excessively important to increase the number of genome-wide significant risk variants for tested traits or health conditions that are highly associated with the populations. The pain point among genetic testing companies in Asia is that the genomic database mostly focuses on the Caucasian genome. This Eurocentric bias means that any other ethnicity, specifically Asian, does not benefit as much from advances in genomic studies. Take Atorvastatin as an example. This is a statin drug prescribed for the treatment of hyperlipidemia and the prevention of cardiovascular issues. It was found that patients of Asian descent respond faster to Atorvastatin than Caucasian patients, due to a variation in the TIMD4 gene. Therefore, the former requires a lower dose of Atorvastatin. At Genetica^®, eligibility criteria were developed and used to assess the selected variants and ultimately were combined all uniquely for the Asian genetic reports.

Genetica^® is also one of the very few genetic testing companies that have developed its own patent-pending gene decoding technology. Additionally, Genetica^® has been working side by side with leading genetic testing companies in the world such as Illumina and Thermofisher. Our gene decoding chip was developed in a way so that it would evolve over time, which means the more genetic data Genetica^® collects, the more upgraded it becomes.

Last but not least, Genetica^® lab complies with CLIA and CAP certifications, which are the most stringent in the United States for genetic testing laboratories.

Genetica^® provides four sets of services that apply genetic sequencing to: 1) Set up plans for the upbringing and education of children, 2) personalize your fitness and nutrition regimen, 3) assess the risk of genetic diseases (stroke, diabetes, allergies, risk of viral infections), and 4) screening for 20 common hereditary cancers of the Asian population.

Q. What can you tell us about Genetica’s proprietary state-of-the-art technology platform in place?

Aiming to develop a genetic platform that enables precision medicine and various applications for personalization targeted at underserved populations—specifically Asians, Genetica^® has provided breakthrough technology built on the following three pillars of key technologies:

Gene-decoding Technology: We collaborated with Illumina^® and Thermo Fisher to develop an Asian-specific polygenic decoder chip that has been recognized by Illumina with >99 percent accuracy and follows strict compliance with HIPAA security standards. All samples and user genetic data are anonymized and encrypted.

AI Technology: It will help diagnose genetic conditions more accurately and achieve higher productivity by combining more information and previous genetic research results. Hence, our reports provide comprehensive information about a person’s health-related risks, innate potentials, and behavioral tendencies by analyzing hundreds of genes from the customers’ genome.

Partnership with Oasis Lab, a global blockchain network: This empowers our users to have full ownership and control over their genetic data, enhance precision medicine, and protect 100,000 genomic data profiles for privacy-preserving medicine.

Q. What are your focus areas?

Our primary mission is to pave the way for personalized healthcare and precision medicine development. Genetic data has ignited the irreversible shift towards “personalize, predict, and prevent” in numerous industries.

The immediate impact includes providing intensive genetic insights to help our users formulate plans that are tailor-made for their very own nutritional and athletic needs, not to mention preventative health measures such as quickly alerting the hereditary risk of 18 common cancers in Asia. Regarding the young population, our tests aim at improving child nurture and educational planning for parents.

Notwithstanding, the current accessibility is a vital problem partly because only <1% of the world’s population has had their genes sequenced. Moreover, ~78% of participants of genome-wide associated studies are of Europe descent. This leaves the majority of the world’s ethnic groups gasping for genetic insights that should otherwise be mainstream for everyone.

Therefore, the game-changer we aim to pursue is to provide the genomics data economy –where we will tokenize the data ownership of our users and enable them to own, contribute and earn from their participation with endeavors– with researchers and entrepreneurs in the development of solutions for personalized healthcare and precision medicine.

This way, we can enable billions of people to participate in the future of healthcare, leveraging the convergence of three pillars of our core technology: AI, a proprietary gene decoding chip, and blockchain.

Q. How skilled is the Genetica^® team of experts? And how do they bring value to the company?

Our science and technology teams are among the best in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most of whom are experts from UCSF, Cornell University, Stanford University, and Harvard Medical School. Since our founding, we have now been working on cutting-edge technology and have grown as a company to collaborate with Illumina and Thermofisher to develop our proprietary technology for decoding Asian genomes.

We have also been receiving valuable contributions from prominent names, serving as our advisors, such as Roy Perlis, M.D., M. Sc., — Director at Center for Quantitative Health (Massachusetts General Hospital), Physician Investigator (CI) at Center for Genomic Medicine (Mass General Research Institute), Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and Associate Member at Broad Institute, and Benjamine Ma, M.D. — Vice President of Adult Clinical Operations and Director of Shoulder Services and Sports Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

Leadership | Genetica^®

Cao Anh Tuan, co-founder, serves as Chief Technology Officer of Genetica^®.

Bui Thanh Duyen, co-founder, serves Chief Scientific Officer of Genetica^®.

Pham Vu Thanh Giang, co-founder, serves as the Chief Experience Officer of Genetica^®.

“Our proprietary gene decoding chips have been recognized by world-leading gene test provider, Thermo Fisher, to be one of the most intensive in decoding Asian genomes."