San Diego & Menlo Park, CA 11/1/18—Sequencer firm Illumina has agreed to acquire Pacific Biosciences for $8 per share, or approximately $1.2 billion. The price represents a 71% premium to Pacific Biosciences’ 30-day volume–weighted average share price. Pacific Biosciences offers a long-read sequencing technology. “PacBio’s unmatched accuracy mirrors that of Illumina’s in short-read sequencing. Combining the two technologies positions us to reach more applications, accelerate the pace of genomic discovery and bolster our innovation engine which has been a hallmark of Illumina since our inception,” stated Illumina President and CEO Francis deSouza. “PacBio’s relentless pursuit to improve sequencing accuracy, while driving down the cost, underscores the potential of long reads to expand sequencing to new customers and applications.” The transaction is expected to close in mid-2019. (For Pacific Biosciences’ latest quarterly results, see Third Quarter Results: Danaher, Illumina, Pacific Biosciences, PerkinElmer, Thermo Fisher Scientific and Waters.)

The purchase could be a game changer for long-read technology adoption as Illumina plans to invest in product development and sales. Illumina can also now address shortcomings of its existing technology, particularly for analyzing large and complex regions of the genome. For more on the announcement, see “The Long and the Short of It: Illumina to Buy Pacific Biosciences.”