Biotech partnership to accelerate understanding of genetics of long COVID and help identify new treatments

Biotech partnership to accelerate understanding of genetics of long COVID and help identify new treatments

A new partnership between PrecisionLife and Sano Genetics will help advance researchers’ understanding of the drivers of long COVID, idnetifying at-risk patients and potential drug targets

OXFORD, UK, May 11 2022 – PrecisionLife Limited, a global techbio company using its deep insights into disease biology and patient stratification to drive precision medicine in chronic diseases, is pleased to announce a partnership with Sano Genetics, a genetic research platform enabling patients to participate in ethical research projects, to advance understanding of the long-term effects of coronavirus infection (long COVID).

The project will include analysis of Sano Genetics’ data from 3,000 UK adults suffering from long COVID symptoms using PrecisionLife’s proprietary combinatorial analytics platform to identify risk-factors and potential drug targets. 

It is estimated that 5-30% of Covid patients will go on to have long-term complications and, with over 500M people worldwide confirmed as having been infected, the need for better diagnostics and treatments is large.

PrecisionLife’s combinatorial analytics platform is uniquely able to identify the drivers of complex disease biology at an unprecedented level of resolution. This new study aims to advance researchers’ understanding of why some people, even those with mild original COVID infections, are at risk of developing debilitating long COVID symptoms, and discover novel drug targets and drug repositioning candidates with associated patient stratification biomarkers that could lead to new treatments to help long COVID sufferers.

Under the agreement, Sano Genetics will provide access to its long COVID patient population dataset to PrecisionLife for analysis. Sano’s research participants always remain in full control of their data and can select which research programmes they want to take part in on a case-by-case basis. In 2021 Sano Genetics received support via UK Government funding body Innovate UK to anonymously gather genomic DNA data and patient reported outcomes from 3,000 UK adults suffering from long COVID symptoms. One of the key goals of the study is to ensure that the population demographics of the UK are reflected in the data so that the research outcomes are both accurate and representative.

Early in the pandemic, PrecisionLife delivered world leading insights into COVID-19, being the first to identify 68 genes that were associated with serious disease and hospitalization in COVID-19 patients^[1], and confirming the predicted severe disease risk factors in a clinical dataset^[2]. Since then, over 70% of these gene targets have been independently validated by other research projects around the world. In addition, PrecisionLife revealed opportunities for 29 approved drugs to be repurposed as COVID-19 treatments targeting the associated genes, 13 of which are being evaluated in clinical trials with COVID-19 patients.

Dr Patrick Short, CEO and co-founder of Sano Genetics, said: “Learning to live with COVID and manage its health consequences has long term public health and economic implications. An estimated 1.7 million people in the UK have reported experiences of long COVID, with symptoms lasting longer than four weeks.

“Understanding how our genetics influence our response to COVID-19 is key to better protecting vulnerable people and developing effective treatments. PrecisionLife’s analysis of Sano Genetics’ data will enable this deep biological understanding.”

Dr Steve Gardner, CEO of PrecisionLife, said: “Long COVID is a major public health issue. Most sufferers have no clear path for engaging with the healthcare system, as diagnosis is uncertain and the complex symptoms and causes of the disease are not yet fully understood. In our 2020 study, we noted a range of cardiovascular, immunological, and neurological changes in COVID-19 patients and want to understand whether these are transient or permanent.

"We are confident that this study into the long-term effects of SARS-CoV-2 infection, working in partnership with Sano Genetics, will deliver valuable insights to enable a better understanding of long COVID vulnerabilities and ultimately ensure that personalized treatments are directed towards those patients that need them most.”

[1] Taylor, K., Das, S., Pearson, M., Kozubek, J., Pawlowski, M., Jensen, C.E., Skowron, Z., Møller, G.L., Strivens, M. and Gardner, S. (2020). Analysis of genetic host response risk factors in severe COVID-19 patients. medRxiv. 10.1101/2020.06.17.20134015

[2] Combinatorial Analysis of Phenotypic and Clinical Risk Factors Associated with Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients. Frontiers in Digital Health. https://doi.org/10.3389/fdgth.2021.660809 (July 2021)