USG's technology platform holds the promise of commercial applicability to all industries that have the potential to use genetics analysis. Initially, the Company has identified market opportunities in pharmacogenomics, drug discovery, and clinical diagnostics. The Company plans to commercialize its GeneEngine™ technology platform through selected life science collaborations in the near term. USG also expects that, by enabling the broad industrial application of genomic data, its technologies will greatly expand the market opportunities for genomics as an industry.
 

Leading the Genomics Revolution through Superior Data Content
U.S. Genomics was formed to fill a great void in the ability to provide instantaneous access to genetic information on a complete genome scale. When the Company was founded in 1997, its mission was to create technologies capable of sequencing complete genomes on the time scale of one day, all base pairs inclusive, at commercially practical levels.

The world's current understanding of genomics is still in its infancy. USG's technologies aim at solving the large information bottleneck that exists today. It took 10 years and nearly $3 billion for the Human Genome Project to generate data on the equivalent of one person's genome. While the HGP was a landmark achievement, it represents little more than 0.00000002% of the amount of DNA that will need to be sequenced in order to fully enable genomics and genomics-related industries such as pharmacogenomics to completely understand the genome.

With relatively small amounts of information, only a limited understanding of genetics can be formed. For example, no multigenic diseases, which potentially include cancer and heart disease, have yet been fully elucidated. The immense and ever growing demand for genetic information cannot be satisfied through existing commercially available technologies.
 

The information bottlenecks inherent in current genomic analysis result either from high-throughput methodologies that yield low-value results, or high-value leads that can only be generated slowly from low-throughput analyses. We kept those considerations in mind when we created a fundamental new technology platform capable of addressing the large demand for genetic information. We are looking forward to vastly accelerating and empowering the life sciences industry by providing broadly distributed access to our technology platform.

The goal of U.S.Genomics is to lead the understanding of genetics by becoming the World's preeminent provider of genetic information technology platforms. Our technology has the potential to serve as a leading platform for deriving genetic information for the life sciences industry. We recognize that an understanding of genetics requires knowledge across multiple disciplines, ranging from raw sequence data to newly emerging fields like proteomics. Knowledge in each of the critical field areas will lead to the better understanding of genetics as a whole. In focusing on sequence-specific data (one of the key starting points for understanding genetics) we are addressing one of the biggest challenges facing genomics today. By exponentially increasing access to this data, we are greatly enhancing the value of all aspects dependent on it.
 

USG's Solution
In the beginning, we realized that the information bottlenecks inherent in current genomic analysis result from either high-throughput methodologies that yield low-value results, or high-value leads that can only be generated slowly from low-throughput analyses. We kept those considerations in mind when we created a fundamental new technology platform capable of addressing the large demand for genetic information. We are looking forward to vastly accelerating and empowering the life sciences industry by providing broad distributed access to our technology platform.
 

To address the emerging commercial need for the rapid production of usable and comprehensive genomic data, we have created a fundamental new technology platform that allows direct, linear DNA analysis. Modeled after the natural method of reading genetic material during cell division, the Company's technology platform greatly expands the read lengths for which DNA can be analyzed. USG's technology has no upper limit on the length of DNA that can be read, a characteristic that offers the potential of transforming the utility and commercial application of genomic analysis. An analogy to this can be drawn to reading a large set of 23 books. With low read lengths, it is similar to reading small sentence fragments at a time. With extremely long read lengths, it is akin to reading chapters at a time. Information is not only more ordered, but throughput is vastly accelerated since reassembly requirements are vastly reduced. By combining ultra-high read length with superior throughput, we have enabled the potential application of sequencing genomes as rapidly as one day.
 

U.S. Genomics: the Early Days
The technology behind USG was conceived in Eugene Chan's dormitory room while he was enrolled in the joint Harvard/MIT M.D. Health Sciences and Technology Program. Recognizing the existence of an unmet need for new approaches in medicine and health care, Eugene shifted his focus to pursue his vision full-time. In doing so, he invented a fundamental new technology for DNA analysis.

In 1998, armed with venture funding and a strong background in genetics, physics, and chemistry, Eugene Chan founded U.S. Genomics along with his brother Ian, who has served since as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of Corporate Development.