Company Announcements

In June, China-based Annoroad and Illumina announced an agreement to jointly develop advanced clinical applications for reproductive health based on NGS, including a user friendly, prenatal DNA diagnostic system.

A*STAR Genome Institute of Singapore established a strategic joint lab initiative with Pyrobett, a Singapore-based joint venture of BMS and QIAGEN, to develop a pyrosequencing platform for clinical diagnostics.

Tute Genomics closed its Series A1 round of venture capital funding, raising over $3.9 million.

DNAnexus and the Human Genome Sequencing Center at the Baylor College of Medicine are codeveloping HgV, a comprehensive framework for large-scale high-throughput whole genome–sequence analysis optimized for Illumina X Ten–scale data processing.

TATAA Biocenter will distribute and support Strand Life Sciences’ Strand NGS analysis tool in Europe.

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard will offer its Genome Analysis Toolkit as a service on the Google Cloud Platform as part of Google Genomics. The Broad will also continue to offer the software directly.

Product Introductions

ArcherDx released in June the FusionPlex Lung Thyroid Panel for eight genes and the FusionPlex Solid Tumor Panel for over 50 genes.

Agilent Technologies launched the SureSelect Human All Exon V6, V6+UTR and V6+COSMIC target enrichment products for exome sequencing.

Complete Genomics, a BGI company, previewed its Revolocity sequencing system, which is designed to deliver 10,000 whole genome sequences a year and expand to 30,000. It also supports whole exome sequencing, and integrates library preparation, sequencing and data analysis.

BGI debuted the BGISEQ-500 desktop sequencer in China, a second system based on Complete Genomics sequencing technology. It automates sample preparation, sequencing and data analysis. BGI also introduced a noninvasive prenatal test application for the system.

QIAGEN and Inova Translational Medicine Institute released Inova Genomes, a compendium of ethnically, phenotypically and ancestrally diverse whole genome–sequencing data for researchers seeking to accelerate cohort analysis programs or improve success rates in diagnostic odyssey cases. QIAGEN is the exclusive distributor.

Oxford Gene Technology introduced the SureSeq Myeloid Panel for detecting mutational changes in 25 genes.

Sales/Orders of Note

In June, Genomics England selected the clinical interpretation providers for the results of the first 8,000 patients in its 100,000 Genomes Project: Congenica and Omicia for rare disease, Nanthealth for cancer and WuXi Nextcode for rare disease and cancer.