2023 – Year in Review

gMendel® is a MedTech Companion Diagnostics as a Service company for genetic disorders & beyond. gMendel® has developed an AI cloud-based end-to-end IVD certified technology for accurate, fast & affordable diagnosis. Moreover, gMendel®’s technology is automated, transcending the need for bioinformatician ‘s intervention, reducing the experimental errors & costs. This improves accessibility and has a potential to revolutionize genetic analysis without changes to current health care protocols.

Research & Technology

We achieved Proof of Concept for deletions, insertions, point mutations, whole exome seq. & DNA region customisation with amplicon & probe, and enhanced Phivea® platform, a comprehensive decision support software for healthcare professionals. To analyze different gene sequences, we developed the machine learning algorithm Torchlex. Torchlex reduces computational complexity and significantly increases the speed of analysis, while maintaining the same quality and accuracy compared to Next Generation Sequencing. This method allows us to significantly reduce the cost and speed of analysis per gene sample. Throughout the year, we actively explored various options, carefully evaluating factors such as scalability, security, ease of integration, and compatibility with existing healthcare systems in our pursuit of the highest levels of data security. This has led to significant progress in adopting blockchain technology within our Phivea® platform. We’re pleased to share that we’ve laid a strong foundation and evaluated potential solutions. We are ready to take the next step by implementing the first use case, using smart contracts to securely record proofs of data existence in the form of hashes on the blockchain. 

Quality management system & Intellectual Property

We maintained our ISO13485 certification within the scope “Design and Development and Service Provision of In Vitro Diagnostic Medical device software”. We worked intensively to continue meeting the regulatory requirements for our Quality Management System.

Our first patent was published on Dec 7 (WO2023/232940 A1; PCT/ EP2023/064684)

International Collaborations & Partnerships

We continued our strategic partnerships with Netcetera AG (Software Development CO, CH); Star Global (QA/RA); GenXone S.A. (DNA Seq. Lab, PL); Oxford Nanopore Tech (Biotech Co, UK), and established a new partnership with Agilent Technologies (US). We have also strong collaborations with: Univ. of Copenhagen, DK; National Centre for Scientific Research ”Demokritos”, GR; Univ. of Ss. Cyril & Methodius in MK; Coriell Institute for Medical Research, USA.

Board of Directors

We strengthened our Board of Directors with two new members. Our board now consist of Hanna Pyokari (co-founder, focus on Financial Planning & Budgeting), Dr. Zoran Zdraveski (focus on Strategy & IPR) and Prof. Deepak Asudani (focus on Health Systems & US expansion). The Board continuous to guide the company forward, especially through shaping public private partnerships, a key factor in unlocking the potential of the gMendel® technology for mass screening of genetic disorders & beyond.

Funding

In 2023, we raised funding from public and private institutions such as a) Innovation Fund Denmark (project concluded successfully in May 2023); b) EU Eureka Eurostars (project is ongoing until March 2025); c) EU Eureka Innowwide (project concluded successfully in Nov 2023) as well as the Danish angel investors iFutura, Quaternity and CVX ventures.  

Key customers

We have signed cooperation agreements with hospitals, distributors and public bodies across Europe, North America, South America and Middle East and we are ready to start pilots for Companion Diagnostics for Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA), Cystic Fibrosis (CF), Anemia and Epilepsy.

Publications, Participation in Conferences & other Events

In November, we submitted our first paper to Nature Group: Schack, A. et al, SCAN: a nanopore-based, cost effective decision-supporting tool for mass screening of aneuploidies.During the year, our team has actively participated in numerous conferences, delegations and meetings across the world, from the U.S. to Japan, with the aim to inform patients, scientists, healthcare professionals and regulators about the gMendel® technology and its benefits for early and accurate diagnosis. All our publications, posters, abstracts are published on the gMendel® website: https://www.g-mendel.com/PUBLICATIONS/.

  1. February 22-26,International Conference of Human Genetics, Cape Town, South Africa
  2. March 7-8, The North Goes South, TMC-DK BioBridge program, organized by the Danish Trade Council and Texas Medical Center, Houston, USA
  3. April24-26, Conference on Genomics or Rare Diseases, Welcome Science Conference, UK
  4. April 24-26, SDG Accelerator, organized by the DK Trade Council, Delhi/Bangalore, India
  5. May 4, Visionaries in Life Science, organized byHellenic Innovation Network, Boston, USA
  6. May 17 & 19, London Calling 2022, organised by ONT, London, UK
  7. May 11 & 12, 13th Annual Great Plains Rare Disease Summit, Sanford Research, Sioux Falls, USA
  8. June 10-13, European Society of Human Genetics (ESHG) Annual Meeting 2023, Glasgow, UK
  9. June 11-16, Nordic Amplify, organized by the Nordic Innovation centers, Winston-Salem, USA
  10. September 13 & 14, TechBBQ Summit, Copenhagen, Denmark
  11. Sept 6, Roundtable meeting with healthcare delegation from West Africa, organized by the Confederation of Danish Industry, Copenhagen, Denmark
  12. Sept 6, Roundtable meeting with healthcare delegation from Texas Medical Center, organized by the Danish Trade Council, Copenhagen, Denmark
  13. Sept 7, Roundtablemeeting withtrade delegation fromJiangsu – China, organized by the Nordic Asian Venture Alliance, Copenhagen, Denmark
  14. October 16-19, The Beyond AI Joint Project, organized by the University of Tokyo and SoftBank, Tokyo, Japan
  15. October 16& 17NORD Rare diseases and Orphan Products breakthrough summit, Washington, DC
  16. October 26, Cancer Partnerships Meeting, organized by the Danish Life Science Cluster & the Technical University of Denmark (DTU), Lyngby, Denmark
  17. Nov 1-5, American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) Annual Meeting 2023, Washington DC, USA
  18. Nov 2, Clinical Innovation Summit, organized by the Innovation Centre Denmark, Copenhagen
  19. Nov 29-30, Clinical Trials Europe organized by Informa Connect, Barcelona, Spain
  20. Dec 7, Digital Health Leadership Summit 2023, organized by Entscheiderfabrik, Vienna, Austria

Communication with Funding Institutions

  1. Innovation Fund Denmark (Project ID: 2055-00069B; Project title: gMendel®Test – A novel diagnostic tool for detection and medical interpretation of rare/genetic disorders; project concluded successfully in May 2023)
  2. EU Eureka Eurostars (Project ID 2922/Eurostars 3/call 3; Project title: A novel non-invasive prenatal screening tool for detection of Genetic Disorders powered by AI; project is ongoing until March 2025; interim report approved in Nov 2023)
  3. EU Eureka Innowwide (Project ID: 2022-18363/IW/CALL 1; Project title: Sea—change technology for the diagnosis of genetic disorders in Egypt, Project concluded successfully in Nov 2023 with agreements with 3 customers)

Social Media

LinkedIn:100+ announcements on LinkedIn and approx. 2,700 followers.

Our strategic commitments for 2024

Commitment #1: Start commercialization of our Companion Diagnostics as a Service (CDxaaS) in Europe, North America, South America and Middle East. Pilot projects within private/public hospitals and private diagnostic centers. Through these projects, we will be able to collect more data and receive invaluable customer input for our future products. After successful pilots we will start generating revenues (Q4 2024)

Commitment #2Continue building interconnected partnerships with public health systems, industry, KOLs and communities. We expect to enhance our current collaborations and partnerships and initiate new ones in selected countries. We also expect to participate in more conferences and congresses and be active members of more advocacy groups.

Commitment #3: PoC for cfDNA and experimentation with multi-omics & clinical data.

Commitment #4: Blockchain technology for highest security & reliability. First use case, using smart contracts to securely record proofs of data existence in the form of hashes on the blockchain. 

Commitment #5: Expand our IP with additional patents and publications.

Commitment #6: Close our seed funding round (Q1 2024) and raise additional grants.

Thanks for your continuous support! Together, we are building tomorrow’s healthcare for genetic disorders/rare diseases towards precision treatments.

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024!

gMendel® Executive Management