Google And Amazon Are In The Race To Get A Hold Of Person's DNA Into The Cloud

The cloud genomics market is expected to grow to $1bn by 2018.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) has joined in a rat race against Amazon Inc. to store data of a human DNA, seeking to reach out to scientists for new discoveries and boost its share in a business that is likely to be worth nearly a billion dollars.

There is intense competition with the two companies offering their cloud computer offerings, such as the Google Genomics and Amazon Web Services - providing a choice scenario for academic institutions and health care companies.

That growth is driven by the desire for a personalized medicine, which is to treat the patient based on his/her DNA profile, but making that happen will require data in enormous quantities to find out that particular genetic profile of those persons so that a suitable treatment is figured out.

Universities and drug manufacturers, on the other hand, are embarking on hundreds or thousands of projects in a bid to find the sequence of the genomes from hundreds of people, who are taking part in the medical studies.

Many of Google’s and Amazon’s clients spoken to, have said that they are highly appreciable for the two companies to take this leap since genomics data is a big task to store in their own computers, helping to control costs and can be easily accessed and shared.

In addition to storing DNA data, the companies are also going all out in developing the analytical functions to let the scientists make sense of the data – and this is where IBM and Microsoft are stepping in to exert their authority in the market.

Craig Venter, owner of the San Diego-based Human Longevity, which has privately been sequencing the human genome since the late 1990s, had been importing genomic data servers at the J. Craig Venter Institute in Rockville, Maryland, but the organization now uses the services of Amazon’s Web Services.

In a bid to lure customers to their side, Amazon and Google are each hosting well-known genomics data free for a limited period – and it seems that Amazon’s Web Services may be running as the winner for the time being.

Another sales pitch by the two companies is the use of analytical tools to fish out DNA variant that predicts the disease risk level from a pool of data. According to Google Genomics director of engineering, David Glazer, while academic and pharma companies will be the biggest customer, it will be overtaken by the use of clinical applications for the next decade. He further states that they are at the transaction point now.

Google’s stock price ended the day at $549.84, down 0.11% from the previous day.