In 2013, a brilliant entrepreneur by the name of Pieter van Rooyen conceived an idea to repurpose a method used to enable secure, wireless voice telecommunications to a new task: processing genomic data. At that point in time, it was not uncommon for it to take nearly 12 hours of computational time to identify mutations in a genetic sequence. This not only created a critical bottleneck to the important work being done by researchers and medical professionals, it also stymied the growth of the entire genomics industry. Pieter van Rooyen’s concept offered the potential to change this status quo.
Later that year, with the financial backing of select family offices (a family-controlled investment group), a new company—Edico Genome—was launched, with van Rooyen taking the helm as CEO. Greg Lucier, who was part of the original investor group, took on the role of Chairman of the Board.