Forward Deployed Product Manager

The biotech bi-weekly: designing preclinical oncology programs, mass spectrometers with an isotope ratio analysis mode and single-molecule mutation sequencing. BioTechniques News Maddy Chapman Here, BioTech company highlight new chromatography and mass spectrometry technologies, a partnership facilitating single-molecule mutation sequencing for toxicology testing and funding that will advance early-stage ovarian cancer and rare disease research. Products. Introducing isotope ratio analysis mode. Thermo Fisher Scientific (MA, USA) has introduced the Thermo Scientific(TM) Orbitrap(TM) Isora(TM) Mass Spectrometer and Orbitrap Isora Pro Mass Spectrometer, the company's first Orbitrap instruments with a dedicated isotope ratio analysis mode. Together with the Thermo Scientific(TM) Vanquish(TM) Duo UHPLC System and new Isotope Discoverer(TM) Software, the instruments form an integrated workflow designed to make molecular-level isotope ratio analysis accessible to more laboratories and researchers worldwide. Simplifying downstream process-scale chromatography. Bio-Rad Laboratories (CA, USA) has announced the launch of prepacked process-scale Foresight(TM) Pro chromatography columns packed with Bio-Rad's scalable Nuvia(TM) chromatography resins, for downstream process-scale chromatography applications throughout the various stages in biological drug development and manufacturing. BioTech company caught up with Albert Heck, who pioneered several technological developments in MS, to discuss his work on native MS, his contributions to cross-linking MS, and to get his advice for working with these innovative techniques. Partnerships. Relocating a leading innovation engine for pharma. BioMed X (Heidelberg, Germany) has announced the relocation of its global headquarters to LAB22 at Heidelberg Innovation Park, together with the launch of a global partnership with BioLabs (MA, USA), a provider of shared laboratory infrastructure for life science innovators. Facilitating single-molecule mutation sequencing. Toxys (Oegstgeest, Netherlands), an innovative toxicology testing company, and Mutagentech (NY, USA), a biotechnology company specialized in advanced genomic technologies, have announced a strategic collaboration that will make Mutagentech's proprietary single-molecule mutation sequencing technology available through Toxys' contract research services. Aaron Wenger, Principal Scientist - Bioinformatics at PacBio, explores how advances in accuracy, throughput and cost are making long-read sequencing more accessible at scale. People & publications. Strengthening the Oxford Nanopore team. Oxford Nanopore (UK) has announced the appointment of David Miller as Chief Development and Product Officer and Conor McKechnie as Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, joining on 1 September and 1 October, respectively. Together, these appointments strengthen Oxford Nanopore's leadership team, bringing greater alignment between product development, market positioning and commercial execution. Publishing a comprehensive guide for designing preclinical oncology programs. Altogen Labs (TX, USA) published a comprehensive framework for xenograft model selection and standardization in JoVE, a practical guide to designing preclinical oncology programs from early efficacy through Investigational New Drug- enabling safety studies. The framework addresses preclinical model selection and the integration of cell line-derived xenograft, patient-derived xenograft, orthotopic, humanized and organoid-derived platforms into oncology research workflows, where each answers a different question at a different stage of development. Funding high-risk, high-reward biomedical research. Probably Genetic (CA, USA), the AI platform powering the research, diagnosis and treatment of genetic diseases, has been awarded up to US$10 million from the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H; MD, USA), a USA federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services that funds high-risk, high-reward and transformative biomedical research. As part of ARPA-H's Rare Disease AI/ML for Precision Integrated Diagnostics (RAPID) program, Probably Genetic will leverage and build upon its rich dataset to aggregate data directly from patients and caregivers, revealing patterns that will dramatically reduce the diagnostic odyssey faced by rare disease patients. Beyond diagnosis, this data will form the backbone of multi-omic phenotype models that link real-world evidence to disease biology and give drug developers insights needed to identify targets, stratify patients and design clinical trials. Developing therapies that reprogram cancer biology: new preclinical data just in. Kazia Therapeutics (Sydney, Australia), an oncology-focused biotechnology company developing therapies that selectively reprogram cancer biology, restore anti-tumor immunity and overcome treatment resistance, has announced new preclinical and translational data showing that its lead asset, paxalisib, reduced tumor burden - the total amount of cancer in the body - by 52% in microsatellite stable / proficient mismatch repair colorectal cancer. Advancing early-stage ovarian cancer research. The Mike & Patti Hennessy Foundation (NJ, USA) has announced a grant to City of Hope (CA, USA), one of the largest and most advanced cancer research and treatment organizations in the country, to advance early-stage research aimed at detecting ovarian cancer earlier. The grant is part of the Mike & Patti Hennessy Foundation's Ovarian Cancer Prevention & Early Detection Initiative, a significant, multi-year commitment to fund research and clinical work in the earliest and most underfunded part of the ovarian cancer continuum.

Probably Genetic wins up to $10M ARPA-H contract - unite.ai. Probably Genetic has been awarded up to $10 million by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to expand its AI platform for diagnosing rare genetic diseases, the San Francisco company announced on August 31, 2026. The award was made under ARPA-H's Rare Disease AI/ML for Precision Integrated Diagnostics (RAPID) program, a federal effort to shorten the years-long search many patients face before receiving an accurate diagnosis. ARPA-H is an agency within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that funds high-risk, high-reward biomedical research. Its RAPID program, launched in December 2024, aims to develop AI-based detection models for rare and ultra-rare diseases and to assemble a large curated dataset of longitudinal patient data for training and benchmarking diagnostic algorithms. According to ARPA-H's program page, more than 10,000 rare conditions collectively affect over 350 million people worldwide, and the search for a diagnosis lasts six years on average. What the award funds. Under the contract, Probably Genetic will scale its direct-to-patient data platform across hundreds of rare diseases. The company said it will recruit individuals who already have established diagnoses and meet RAPID's data and participation criteria, aggregating clinical records, patient-reported information, and biological data including DNA into a single dataset. The company said the data will be de-identified and used only for purposes to which patients gave explicit informed consent. Probably Genetic said the resulting resource will be used to train AI models that identify undiagnosed patients and will serve as a component of RAPID's broader national-scale data ecosystem for developing and benchmarking diagnostic algorithms. Beyond diagnosis, the company said the dataset will support multi-omic phenotype models intended to link real-world evidence to disease biology, giving drug developers information to identify targets, stratify patients, and design clinical trials. "Rare disease diagnosis remains one of medicine's most difficult and under-addressed challenges," said Scott Gorman, RAPID Program Manager at ARPA-H, in the company's announcement. He said the program pairs novel AI approaches with multimodal data to enable cross-disease detection at greater speed and scale while generating insights intended to accelerate treatment development. The data problem in Rare Disease diagnosis. The company said half of rare disease patients remain undiagnosed, and that AI approaches to date have been constrained by fragmented, low-quality data. It pointed to an overreliance on electronic health records that often lack details such as symptom onset, severity, progression, and morphological features. Probably Genetic's platform converts self-reported symptoms, prior clinical diagnoses, electronic health record data, and patient-submitted material such as photos and videos into structured deep phenotypic data. The company also provides at-home genetic testing, which it said reduces reliance on repeated specialist visits. The company said it has collected data from more than 120,000 patients to date and partnered with more than 50 patient advocacy groups and more than 15 biopharmaceutical companies. Lange said that if the effort succeeds, the company will assemble what he described as the largest AI-ready genetic disease dataset to date, a characterization the company presented as its own objective. Program context. RAPID is one of several ARPA-H programs directed at rare disease. According to the agency, the program's strategy is to build provider-facing diagnostic tools that integrate into existing clinical workflows, alongside cost-effective direct-to-patient systems that can be deployed remotely to help individuals detect rare diseases at home or in non-clinical settings and route them toward appropriate medical support. The agency said that if the program succeeds, it will expand access to rare disease expertise and help patients and providers reach an accurate diagnosis faster than is possible today. Probably Genetic was founded in 2018 and describes itself as an AI platform for the research, diagnosis, and treatment of genetic diseases. The company said its mission is to diagnose more than 200 million patients living with genetic disease and to support the discovery and development of treatments using AI. The company stated that the research is funded in part by ARPA-H and noted that the views expressed in its materials are those of the authors and do not represent official U.S. government policy. Under the RAPID award, Probably Genetic said it will deploy its patient data submission portal across hundreds of rare diseases, recruiting diagnosed patients to build a dataset it described as large, diverse, and deeply characterized. The company said this resource will feed the development, training, and benchmarking of diagnostic algorithms designed to shorten - and ultimately end - the rare disease diagnostic odyssey.