LaunchCyte to use Juno Virtual Supercomputer

LaunchCyte, a firm focused on creating companies in the bioinformatics market space, expects to help start more than two dozen bioinformatics companies over the next seven years. Many of these companies are expected to focus on the development of information tools for genomics and proteomics applications such as accelerating drug discovery or extracting value from clinical data. LaunchCyte expects that many of the companies it intends to create will be able to benefit from using Juno's distributed computing services as a tool to increase the speed at which projects can be implemented and to reduce operational costs.

Juno and LaunchCyte currently plan to conduct an initial pilot project starting later this quarter to demonstrate the potential of the juno virtual supercomputer to LaunchCyte's portfolio companies and lay the groundwork for any revenue-generating projects such companies might engage juno to perform under the terms of the letter of intent announced today. At least two LaunchCyte-funded development stage companies are expected to use the results of this pilot project to evaluate purchasing time on juno's virtual supercomputer for subsequent projects. One is a genomics endeavor that is developing tools to help identify complex clusters of relationships among genes which could potentially lead to new treatments for diseases such as cancer and heart disease. The other is a proteomics initiative being formed around a proprietary protein screening technology whose goal is to accelerate drug development.