Genen­tech al­lies with a metage­nomics up­start in New York on a dis­cov­ery deal jam packed with biobucks

Genen­tech has turned to a biotech start­up in New York for its lat­est dis­cov­ery pact.

The big Roche group is lend­ing its mar­quee sta­tus to lit­tle Lo­do Ther­a­peu­tics, which is plumb­ing mi­cro­bial DNA se­quence in­for­ma­tion con­tained in soil for fresh leads on nov­el ther­a­peu­tics. Based in the Alexan­dria Cen­ter for Life Sci­ence in mid­town Man­hat­tan, the com­pa­ny launched in ear­ly 2016 with a $17 mil­lion Se­ries A and a quest to ex­plore the in­for­ma­tion they can find en­cod­ed in bac­te­r­i­al genomes — a break from cul­tur­ing known strains of bac­te­ria, which has some ex­treme lim­i­ta­tions.

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