Celemics begins supplying customized panel to Oakland University eye institute

Celemics (CEO Lee Yong-hoon and Kim Hyo-ki, KOSDAQ: 331920), a next-generation sequencing (NGS) technology platform company, announced on the 14th that it has begun supplying a customized panel to Oakland University’s Eye Research Institute in the United States for retinal disease screening and treatment development.

Located in Michigan, Oakland University is a public research university and the second-largest comprehensive university in the Detroit metropolitan area. Its Eye Research Institute, which has adopted Celemics’ panel, is known for specializing in rare eye diseases.

Since 2019, the institute has used Illumina panels to screen patients with inherited retinal diseases—including familial exudative vitreoretinopathy (FEVR) and retinoschisis—for specific variants and develop treatments tailored to those conditions. After three months of performance validation testing, it decided to replace its existing product with Celemics’ panel, even though the project was already underway.

Professor Kenneth Mitton of Oakland University’s Eye Research Institute, who is leading the project, praised the results achieved with Celemics’ product in a social media post and expressed confidence in the project’s success.

Celemics said that extensive market research had revealed significant unmet demand in the United States for its core customized panels, prompting the company to begin direct sales efforts there in the second half of last year. It said the decision to replace an existing competitor’s product and begin supplying its own validates the assumptions and strategy behind its U.S. market entry. The company added that it plans to accelerate sales efforts across the United States, including the Midwest.