Analyst Says Bionano’s Genome Mapping Platform Could Be a Game Changer

This month shares of life sciences company Bionano have seen gains of over 300% and the company this week announced some pretty big news.

On Monday Bionano disclosed that its genome mapping platform Saphyr has been accredited in the US by the College of American Pathologists.

The platform will be used by Bionano’s customer Praxis Genomics, marking it as the first company to offer a laboratory developed test (LDT) utilizing whole genome analysis.

This accreditation is the first of its kind in the U.S.

According to Maxim analyst Jason McCarthy, Saphyr’s optical genome mapping is an alternative to traditional cytogenetic methods and hebelieves it could be a game changer.

“Digital cytogenetics is one of the areas where Saphyr has the potential to change the clinical diagnostic landscape,” the analyst said. “Current methods are labor and time intensive, and therefore costly. Saphyr offers a more efficient and streamlined alternative as well as potentially improved diagnostic yield. As more LDTs are developed, we anticipate that adoption for Saphyr should increase, driving revenue for Bionano.”

Saphyr’s qualities were recently highlighted in an article. PacBio’s HiFi chemistry was only able to detect 72% of the large SVs (structural variants) detected by Saphyr.

The analyst has reiterated a “buy” rating on Bionano shares along with a $2 price target.

Two other analysts also recently posted reviews on the company, with one saying Buy and the other recommending a Hold.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.