Tagomics: identifying key genomic changes that drive disease
Tagomics was spun out from the University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ to develop and commercialise a novel epigenetic profiling technology that originated from research led by Dr Robert Neely out of the School of Chemistry.
Tagomics co-founders Dr Robert Neely (Chief Scientific Officer), Dr Jack Kennefick (Chief Executive Officer), and Debora Lucarelli (Chief Technology Officer) with Chief Financial Officer, Peter Bream.
This research, funded by EPSRC Healthcare Technology Challenges award, investigated ways to identify the earliest detectable changes to the genome during cancer – a process called methylation, which switches genes on and off.
Existing methods of reading DNA methylation patterns are limited, so the research team set out to develop a technology that addresses these challenges. This work yielded three patents, filed by University Â鶹¾«Ñ¡ Enterprise, that were foundational for the company.
The Enterprise team also supported Dr Jack Kennefick, at the time a PhD student in Dr Neely’s group, through the Innovate UK ICURe programme, which funds a rigorous customer discovery journey so academic innovators can road test the value of their ideas, and the Royal Society of Edinburgh’s Enterprise Fellowship, a prestigious business and entrepreneurship programme that also provides funding to support the spin-out process.
Tagomics has since extended the platform to seamlessly combine ‘omics’ technologies, including genomics (detecting mutations), epigenomics (studying chemical ‘switches’ on the genome), and fragmentomics (the analysis of DNA fragmentation patterns in the blood). By integrating these methods and applying advanced data analysis and machine learning algorithms, Tagomics is developing innovative diagnostic solutions - advancing earlier cancer detection, drug development, and therapy selection for patients.
The company employs eighteen people, has now raised more than £8m across two fund-rounds, has several partnerships underway and announced a co-marketing agreement with Agilent Technologies, a leading tools provider in the genomics sector.