Hyrax Biosciences, through its Exatype platform, delivers scalable HIV drug-resistance analysis to global programmes - processing over 150,000 HIV sequences for 1,146 active users across 70+ organisations in 103 countries. More than half of these programmes operate in Global Health Equity settings, positioning Exatype as one of the most widely adopted and trusted platforms for routine Sanger-based HIV genotyping worldwide. Building on this foundation, Hyrax Biosciences validated whether Illumina NGS generated using the Thermo Fisher HIV-1 Genotyping Kit with Integrase, when analysed on Exatype, delivers drug-resistance results equivalent to the Sanger (capillary electrophoresis sequencing) gold standard. This analysis shows strong cross-platform concordance, demonstrating that the kit performs consistently whether sequenced on Illumina or Sanger. Exatype was used as the common analytical pipeline, ensuring standardised processing and fully comparable outputs.

Exatype, developed by Hyrax Biosciences, underpins HIV drug-resistance testing for programmes worldwide, supporting more than 1,100 active users across 70+ organisations in 103 countries and processing over 150,000 HIV sequences to date. Its broad adoption - particularly across Global Health Equity settings - has established Exatype as a trusted platform for routine Sanger-based HIV-1 genotyping and reporting. Given this widespread adoption, Hyrax Biosciences evaluated whether data generated using the Thermo Fisher ABI HIV-1 Genotyping Kit with Integrase, when sequenced on Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT), delivers drug-resistance results equivalent to those generated from Sanger sequencing, with both datasets analysed using the Exatype platform. These findings show that the assay performs consistently across both technologies, with strong concordance in consensus sequences and drug-resistance calls. Exatype served as the shared analytical workflow, enabling direct comparison and simplifying cross-platform interpretation.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the global need for fast, accurate, and scalable pathogen identification. As respiratory-virus testing expands beyond single-target assays, the combination of multiplex amplification panels and next-generation sequencing (NGS) has emerged as a powerful approach for comprehensive respiratory pathogen surveillance and identification. At the center of this evolution, Hyrax Biosciences’ cloud-based genomic analysis platform, Exatype, provides a platform-agnostic analysis environment capable of transforming raw sequencing data into actionable genomic insights.

Hyrax Biosciences' Exatype platform provides automated, cloud-based analysis for accurate Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) drug-susceptibility testing (DST) and lineage typing from next-generation sequencing (NGS) data.

In this blog series we will explore multi-targets panels- looking at the applicable use cases, the advantages and the drawbacks of these assays. These panels are designed to simultaneously test for multiple genetic markers across a variety of pathogens. By amplifying different pathogens in a single assay, or multiple targets within the same pathogen, the panels improve detection rates, reduce time to results, and ensure accurate treatment.

Mpox (formerly known as monkeypox), a virus that has long been endemic in parts of Africa, is now the focus of global concern following a surge in cases and the WHO’s declaration of mpox as a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern." The new strain of mpox that has emerged is reportedly more easily transmitted in a wider range of ways, including through close physical contact, sexual contact and through respiratory secretions.

As South Africa enters the winter season, the country is experiencing a small uptick in COVID-19 cases amidst the concurrent flu season. The latest data indicates that the total number of confirmed COVID-19 cases has reached over 4 million, with more than 102 000 deaths reported since the pandemic began. Hyrax Biosciences remains committed to supporting SARS-CoV-2 variant detection and surveillance through Exatype, its online analysis platform.

To support the analysis of Mtb data using NGS technologies, Hyrax Biosciences recently launched Exatype Mtb for targeted and whole-genome sequencing (WGS). Incorporating the latest WHO mutation catalogue, Exatype Mtb generates comprehensive drug-susceptibility reports and lineage-typing results. True to the streamlined nature of the Exatype platform, Exatype Mtb offers a secure, cloud-based, high-throughput solution for NGS-based Mtb drug-susceptibility reporting.

Hyrax Biosciences is extending their co-marketing agreement with Roche to include integrated sample preparation workflows for HIV, TB and respiratory virus panels. With Hyrax Biosciences' streamlined analysis and Roche's KAPA HyperCap and KAPA HyperPETE workflows for Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Sample Preparation, users can expect faster turn-around times, sequencing efficiency, and panel-specific consolidated reporting.

On Wednesday (30 March 2022), the WHO released an updated, and the third version, of their Strategic Preparedness, Readiness and Response Plan for COVID-19. During his opening remarks at the press conference, WHO Director General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, emphasised the importance of equitable vaccination and continued surveillance – not only in response to COVID-19, but also for future epidemics.

SARS-CoV-2 sequence analysis software are NGS tools for analysing and interpreting the DNA of the coronavirus that caused the COVID-19 pandemic. There are multiple steps in the analysis workflow, and at each step, a researcher or laboratory scientist can use an array of different SARS-CoV-2 sequence analysis software to obtain the results they need.

Next-generation sequencing (NGS) is a catch-all phrase for all the sequencing technologies that share the approach of using massively parallel processing. Compared to first-generation sequencing (commonly referred to as Sanger sequencing) that produces a single read (DNA fragment) at a time, NGS technologies can produce billions of short reads per experiment. With billions of sequenced DNA fragments, it is clear to see that NGS technologies are completely reliant on the availability of NGS tools to support them.

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is an international public health emergency as identified by the WHO. If no action is taken, we could be spending an additional 1,2 trillion dollars per year on health by 2050 due to the impact of AMR. Much work has been done in the public health space to try and bring attention to this pandemic, however it remains an under recognised and poorly addressed threat.

End-to-end bioinformatics solutions are software, such as sequence analysis programs, that turn laboratory-produced data into interpretable results. Instead of spending hours analysing each individual experimental dataset, results from routine laboratory tests can be translated to meaningful results simply and quickly by end-to-end bioinformatics solutions.

There are few feelings more distressing to a software developer than receiving news of a totally unknown error experienced by an important customer. At Hyrax Biosciences, we’re always trying to get just a little bit better at what we do: to improve our software, tests, review processes and deployment frameworks. We want our users to be able to forget about their NGS data analysis, and concentrate on what they do best: generating data.

Infectious disease genotyping has become a mainstream topic due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but finding variants and reporting their significance is as old as the field of genetics itself.

Friends have repeatedly asked me the same question over the course of my last two years at Hyrax Biosciences. The question begins with "what’s it like working on the pandemic?", which is usually swiftly followed by either "that must be so meaningful" or "that must be so hard".

The World Health Organization (WHO) report on HIV drug resistance was published at the end of November 2021. The report highlights the progress in HIVDR surveillance and emphasises the need for continued monitoring as regimens shift to include antiretroviral therapy (ART) targeting integrase.

Concerns around the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants that have increased transmissibility and/or reduce vaccine efficacy means that countries are continuing to scale their SARS-CoV-2 genomic surveillance.

Hyrax Biosciences is excited to announce that we have included analysis support for sequence data generating using Oxford Nanopore Technologies. This update means that the Exatype platform, Hyrax Biosciences' genotyping software solution, now includes analysis support for all major sequencing platforms: Illumina, Ion Torrent and Oxford Nanopore.