Slater Fund invests $250K in Genome Corp.

PROVIDENCE – The Slater Technology Fund today announced a $250,000 investment in Genome Corp., a Providence-based startup that is working to develop a cost-effective DNA sequencing technology.
Genome “aims to become a leading player in the emergence of personalized medicine based upon its development of proprietary technologies for sequencing and analyzing the genomes of individuals,” Slater said.
Kevin M. Ulmer, the president and chief science officer, is a serial entrepreneur whose career has focused on the development and application of next-generation DNA sequencing techniques, which he has long said are the key to unlocking the promise of genomic medicine.
He co-founded Genome earlier this year with the Slater Fund, which contributed $250,000 in initial seed money to the company while Ulmer contributed intellectual property and related assets.
Genome is developing a technology known as massively parallel Sanger sequencing. The method combines the traditional Sanger technique with the latest advances in single-molecule biochemistry, and is expected to greatly speed genomic sequencing while significantly reducing its costs.
Besides Ulmer, the board of directors includes Richard G. Horan, senior managing director of the Slater Fund, and Jay K. Trautman, vice president of discovery research and technologies at Cytokinetics Inc. (Nasdaq: CYTK). All three are former senior executives of SEQ LTD, Ulmer’s first single-molecule sequencing venture, which he founded in 1987 and eventually sold to the former Amersham Biosciences, now GE Healthcare.
“Genome Corp. represents the kind of big idea and bold ambition for which we believe the Slater Fund is uniquely suited,” Horan said in a statement today. “Led by a serial entrepreneur with a career of experience being brought to bear, we look to engaging some of the best and brightest genome scientists to address some of the most exciting unsolved problems in biotechnology today.”
The Slater Technology Fund focuses on early-stage life sciences and information technology firms with the potential for significant long-term growth within the State of Rhode Island. Since its inception in 1997, it has provided financing to more than 90 ventures. Additional information is available at http://www.slaterinteractive.com.