SomaGen Secures $10 Billion Alzheimer’s Genomic Analysis Service Contract from NIH

Somagen, a US-based multi-omics specialized analysis company, announced on the 21st that it has signed a whole genome sequencing (WGS) service supply contract with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for approximately 19,000 Alzheimer's patients. The NIH is a government research institution under the US Department of Health and Human Services' Public Health Service that conducts medical and health-related research.

The amount Somagen secured is $7.5 million (approximately 10 billion KRW), accounting for about 31.1% of the company's total sales last year. This consists of a confirmed contract amount of $115,500 for the next year and an option amount of $7.38 million over the following four years.

Somagen previously won a $3.85 million (approximately 4.9 billion KRW) genome analysis project in the second half of last year from the NIH, targeting 10,000 Alzheimer's patients, and is currently providing the service. Based on the excellent analysis results delivered in that project, Somagen succeeded in securing additional orders.

Somagen has recently been signing significant supply contracts. Starting with an approximately 8 billion KRW Parkinson's disease genome analysis order from the Michael J. Fox Foundation in June this year, followed by a genome analysis supply contract worth about 8 billion KRW with Moderna in July. Including this latest contract, Somagen has secured orders totaling approximately 26 billion KRW over the past two months.

Notably, the contracting parties include a variety of clients such as the US government agency NIH, the Michael J. Fox Foundation?the world's largest research and support organization for Parkinson's disease?and the global big pharma company Moderna.

Hong Soo, CEO of Somagen, emphasized, "We continue to receive love calls from US government agencies and others. Since analysis samples from large projects won in the past have been coming in abundantly since July this year, we expect sales to significantly increase from the second half of the year."