On May 26, Precision Health Research, Singapore—known as PRECISE—and Illumina announced they have entered into a strategic partnership to sequence and analyze 100,000 whole genomes of people in Singapore as part of a study called SG100K.
The study aims to answer key questions about the well-being and health of Singaporeans and uses an inclusive strategy to ensure that the 100,000 participants are representative of the diversity of the population as a whole, including traditional under-represented groups, according to PRECISE.
The three-year partnership aims to quickly generate high-quality data to support Singapore’s 10-year National Precision Medicine (NPM) strategy, according to PRECISE. The partnership will make use of Illumina’s capabilities and expertise in large-scale genomic sequencing, and the two sides will also collaborate on enterprise-grade data exchange platforms. Those platforms will be used for securely handling and sharing anonymized biospecimen data for sequencing, as well as for developing artificial intelligence techniques for genomics analysis. “Together, PRECISE and Illumina will work to advance Singapore’s biomedical technology industry through creating bespoke data analytics capabilities, establishing large-scale genomic data infrastructure, and creating new career opportunities to support Singapore’s National Precision Medicine progra[m]. We are hon[o]red to partner with PRECISE to improve human health and believe this breakthrough study will serve as an important catalyst for growth in precision-medicine capabilities throughout Southeast Asia,” said Susan Tousi, chief commercial officer at Illumina, in a statement.