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Appistry Releases GenomePilot Software

By Casey Houser, Contributing Writer

Genomic research software and cloud services provider Appistry recently announced that it has both launched its new software application, GenomePilot, and will soon end a contract it holds with the Broad Institute.

GenomePilot will run locally on any researcher's hardware and will provide genomic labs with the ability to process exome, whole genome, and gene panels as well as data from tumor/normal and tumor-only cancer studies. The announcement says that the preconfigured software will allow researchers to concentrate more on interesting scientific questions and less on optimizing methods for processing medical data.

Trevor Heritage, the vice president of sales and marketing at Appistry, spoke to GenomeWeb about the release of GenomePilot. He said that there is a gap “between genomics research and some of the tools used there” and that the tools in its software package will help bridge that gap. Largely, this means that researchers will have to spend less time digging in to the processing part of research. Instead, they can focus more on completing their research and being sure that GenomeWeb will process data accurately and efficiently.

Unlike many of the latest software products that show up on TMC, GenomeWeb will not operate from the cloud. In a partnership with Dell (News - Alert), Appistry has decided to provide a software package that runs on both custom and stock hardware. For those labs which want to use their own equipment, GenomeWeb will be available. For labs that need a more unique setup, however, Appistry and Dell can work with them to install one of four standard configurations or a custom configuration suited for their needs. At this time, those standard configurations are still being created with Appistry partners.

The launch of GenomeWeb, as previously noted, also marks the end Appistry's commercial licensing rights to the Broad Genome Analysis Tookit (GATK). Appistry has provided a commercial version of GATK to for-profit entities since 2012. It has offered both the stand-alone product and a bundle with its own Cancer Genome Analysis suite. On April 15, that offer ends. GenomeWeb indicated that it was Broad's decision to terminate the agreement – although it is not clear why the company may have chosen to do so. Appistry customers that used the GATK may still have the option to license it from Broad; however, that situation is also still unclear.

Moving forward, it appears that Appistry will stick to its GenomePilot and continue to push for its success and expansion.