INCHEON, South Korea--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Eone-Diagnomics Genome Center (EDGC), a global genetic analysis company, announced that it has raised private equity investment from Kim Joon-il, the Chairman of Lock & Lock.
Chairman Kim founded Lock & Lock in 1978, and it has since grown into a global kitchenware company, exporting to more than 100 countries around the world. In August 2017, Kim decided to sell his entire stake to Hong Kong private equity firm Affinity Equity Partners. Kim, as his first reinvestment of proceeds from the sale of his Lock & Lock's stake, has chosen to make an investment in EDGC. He firmly believes in EDGC’s potential to lead the 4th industrial revolution through its technology.
EDGC provides customized medical services based both on next generation sequencing (NGS) and genotyping techniques along with cutting-edge genome analysis. It continues to develop new medical products and services, including early-onset cancer diagnosis (gene2me™Plus), non-invasive prenatal test (NICE®), newborn genetic screening (bebegene®), ophthalmologic genetic screening (myeyegene™), and direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing (gene2me™). In recent years, EDGC has applied machine learning-based Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to its non-invasive prenatal testing NICE®. In the field of liquid biopsy, EDGC is currently conducting clinical trials with major domestic universities and hospitals.
EDGC’s rapid growth and market-generating ability have attracted the attention of domestic and international industries. It has been included as the only Asian company in Illumina’s Global Screening Array (GSA), the largest international genomics consortium in the world; the initial customer includes human disease researchers at The Broad Institute, Sanford Health and UCLA Health System and consumer genomics company 23andMe.
"As we have attracted significant investment, we will continue to contribute to improvement of health and happiness of the world," said Shang Cheol Shin, CEO of EDGC.
Kim Joon-il added, "As the first step of reinvesting the stake in Lock & Lock, we have made an effort to select the investment destination more strictly. I am convinced that EDGC technology advances every facet of life and will continue to permeate various industrial sectors.”
