(Clipped out of Washington Post article http://goo.gl/Zgn9cd )

By Steven Overly, Published: July 28
When Qiagen scooped up Redwood City, Calif.-based Ingenuity Systems this year, the acquisition marked the first time the biotechnology giant had purchased a firm that exclusively makes software. …

“As the cost of sequencing has come down, what we’ve seen is far more sequencing. The number of genomes has just exploded. Accordingly, what comes part and parcel with that is greater demand to analyze this information,” said William Quirk, managing director at Piper Jaffray.

That demand has given rise to a number of upstarts that develop such software. It’s a niche that analysts and executives say is ripe for innovation and lacks a clear market leader.

“There’s a fair amount of open opportunity here for different software companies to come in and establish themselves,” Quirk said.

Devon Jensen is one. Armed with a doctoral degree in molecular and cell biology, he started Berkeley, Calif.-based Enlis Genomics two years ago.

“I could see that the tools that were available were really built for the experts and not for people in labs where I came from,” Jen­sen said. “There’s a lot of utility in genomics, and I think going forward it’s going to be a big part of biology and a big part of the medical world.”

Jensen said the firm sells its software — which helps researchers understand the significance of genetic variations — to a broad spectrum of customers, including small clinical labs, universities, pharmaceutical companies and even a few medical doctors.

Full article here