Sanford Health partners with Congenica to provide answers for undiagnosed rare disease patients

Sioux Falls, South Dakota, United States and Cambridge, UK – 25 March 2021–Sanford Health (‘Sanford’), a leading US-based healthcare delivery system provider and Congenica, the digital health company enabling rapid and accurate analysis of complex genomic data to transform peoples’ lives, today announce a genomics partnership focused on providing answers for patients and families with hard to diagnose rare diseases.

Congenica is recognized as a global leader in the rapid genomic analysis of complex genomic data in rare diseases. Globally, over 300 million people live with a rare disease, of whom more than 50% are children. It can take considerable time and expense between a patient first presenting to their physician and receiving an accurate diagnosis – more than five years on average. Congenica’s rapid genomic data analysis software can interpret whole genomes in minutes to help to drive down the turnaround time for getting actionable information for patients to only a matter of weeks. As a result of this, parents no longer have to suffer an agonizing diagnostic odyssey of repeatedly going to different specialists and patient outcomes can be significantly improved.

Sanford Health is one of the largest health systems in the United States. Providing an integrated delivery network of health care services, Sanford has a particular focus on genomic medicine. Sanford will use Congenica’s world leading clinical decision support platform to analyze and interpret patient genomes to provide information used by clinicians in identifying the underlying causes of previously undiagnosed rare diseases. Through rapid and accurate diagnosis, the partnership will enable these previously undiagnosed patients to receive the appropriate clinical care and therapy, thereby improving outcomes.

David A. Pearce, PhD, President of Innovation, Research and World Clinics, Sanford Health said: “This partnership between Congenica and Sanford has the potential to have a transformational impact on clinical outcomes for rare disease patients. We selected Congenica for this project as its platform has the capability of generating rapid and accurate analysis for patients who are currently the hardest to diagnose. The scalability of Congenica also offers scope for widespread integration across our network as we make clinical genomics and personalized medicine more accessible.”

Christina Waters, PhD, SVP Genomics Insights & Solutions, Congenica said: “Sanford Health is one of the largest and most advanced hospital networks. This partnership further strengthens our position in the US and provides strong validation of our platform. We look forward to working with Sanford as we integrate genomic analysis into clinical practice to provide life-changing answers for rare disease patients and their families.” 

Congenica and Sanford will be jointly hosting a webinar on 29 March in which they will discuss how their collaboration can be expanded into other indications including pediatric epilepsy. Further details and registration instructions can be found here.