Ambry Genetics Corp. in Aliso Viejo doesn’t say how many genetic tests it does annually, though if you count back to its 1999 founding, it recently passed the 1 million mark in total tests.
The company, which creates and conducts genetic tests for the medical industry, said that when it opened a new 65,000-square-foot lab in February it had conducted about 500,000 of them.
“In the last several years, our sample volume has really increased,” said Aaron Elliott, chief executive and an Innovator of the Year honoree at the Business Journal’s Sept. 22 event at Hotel Irvine (see related stories on pages 1, 4, 6 and 9.
It started with one test and now has more than 600 that cost anywhere from a few hundred dollars up to $6,000 each, Elliott said.
The work involves genetic profiling—a process that examines genes to find out what makes healthy cells sick—and genetic sequencing, or reading a DNA sample to see if it’s normal and, if not, what mutations are to blame.
Elliott’s series of life events also includes a doctorate in genetics, a Supreme Court decision, and the sequencing of the human genome—a human genetic blueprint of about 30,000 genes, according to the National Human Genome Research Institute in Washington, D.C.
It started in an undergraduate course in genetics.
“I took the class right when the human genome sequence had just come up,” he said.
The initial draft of the full sequence by the research institute and its partners was released in February 2001 when Elliott was studying biology at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa.
“I thought it was fascinating,” he said. “I imagined all the things with diagnostics and targeted therapies we could achieve if we knew the complete genetic code.”
A final report came in April 2003. Elliott had begun doctorate work in genetics at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and the Johns Hopkins University medical school in Baltimore.
“Now we had all this information, and there was going to be a lot of work to do to understand how all these genes function and (the) proteins interact.”
Elliott’s Ph.D. nabbed him a post-doctoral slot in San Diego with biotech firm Novartis AG, where he spent time “profiling different types of cancer in the next level of genetic sequencing.”
He joined Ambry in 2008. Early slots there as a scientist and senior scientist led to directorships in genomic services, then research and development. He was named vice president of research and development in 2013, chief scientific officer and chief operating officer last year—roles he still holds—and chief executive in March.
Ambry’s growth overall and his line of ascent across a variety of tasks have mirrored an expansion in genetic testing worldwide.
Ambry’s one test for cystic fibrosis has grown to a portfolio of 600-plus tests for cancer, cardiology, neurology and pediatric conditions. There’s also “exome sequencing”—a process that examines “anything and any disorder,” Elliott said.
A Supreme Court decision in 2013 that said genes can’t be patented spurred the company’s growth.
After that, “the company went gangbusters,” he said.
Ambry’s tests are commonly done on blood or saliva samples sent by hospitals.
“The machines are getting better and better every year, and you can do the tests faster and faster,” Elliott said.
Test results often reach through generations with data that looks at patients’ ancestors and can produce results to help their descendants.
Ambry employs about 800, with 500 in OC.
It opened an office in Bethesda, Md., this year to tap talent in a biotech hub that includes National Institutes of Health—“OC has come close to exhausting the talent pool” needed, Elliott said—and in April 2015 it bought Progeny Software LLC in Delray, Fla., which makes software to manage and map genetic data.
The company wants to grow its predictive and preventive testing from its base in diagnostic work.
“Right now it’s, ‘This person is affected, let’s find out why,’” he said. “We want to move to ‘You don’t have it, but you’re at risk.’”
Founder Charles Dunlop and his family own most of privately held Ambry. The company also counts some of its employees, including Elliot, and nonemployees among its shareholders.
Elliott, 37, is married to Kristi Elliott; they have three kids.
That part of his life sequence began back in school, as well. She works in biotechnology and has a doctorate in genetics.
“We met at Johns Hopkins,” he said.
