Company Announcements

Sony announced in January the establishment with M3 of a new company, P5, which will launch a genomic-information platform in Japan for genome analysis services for research institutes and enterprises. It will also provide a service platform to support the use of genetic data for personalized medicine. Illumina is a minority investor.

In 2013, Pacific Biosciences sales grew 8.5% to $28.2 million (see IBO 3/15/14). The Roche agreement (see IBO 9/30/13) accounted for 6.5% of growth. Product revenue was roughly flat to represent 71% of sales. Instruments and Consumables accounted for 60% and 40% of Product sales, respectively. Service and Other revenue rose 9.4%. Operating loss narrowed 17.8% to $77.5 million. Organic 2014 sales are projected to grow at least 40%, or a minimum of 55% including the Roche agreement.

GenomOncology and Roswell Park Cancer Institute will develop an informatics solution that enables the association of next-generation sequencing (NGS) results with knowledge resources to define actionable mutations.

Illumina and Silicon Valley Bank launched the Illumina Accelerator Program, a business accelerator for the genomics industry. The goal is to speed the time to market and lower the barriers to entry for promising NGS applications. It will support invited participants with technology, business guidance and $100,000 in support. Companies will be selected through a competitive process with the inaugural six-month session beginning in August.

Product Introductions

Roche introduced in January the SeqCap Epi Target Enrichment System for DNA methylation assessment at single-base resolution. It includes both a fixed-content epigenome-wide design and custom target offerings.

Rubicon Genomics introduced in February the PicoPLEX DNA-seq Kits for Illumina platforms. The three-step process is performed in a single tube or well in less than three hours with input concentrations of 6 pg or less.

CLCbio released CLC Genomics Workbench 7.0, featuring an update of the RNA-Seq analysis tool, new statistical tools for analysis of differential expression and a redesign of the graphical user interface.

Kapa Biosystems introduced the KAPA hgDNA Quantification and QC Kit, a qPCR-based assay for assessing the quality of FFPE material prior to NGS sample preparation; the KAPA Hyper Prep Kit, a second-generation kit that streamlines library preparation and improves yields; and the KAPA Stranded mRNA-Seq Kit, an RNA library-preparation kit for gene expression and CNV analysis.

QIAGEN launched the GeneRead DNA FFPE Kit for efficient purification of DNA; the REPLI-g WTA Single Cell Kit and WGA & WTA Kit for transcriptomic NGS analysis from single cells, and comparative genomic and transcriptomic analysis from the same small sample; exosome sample preparation kits, based on technology developed by Exosome Diagnostics; and the GeneRead DNAseq panels V2.0, consisting of 14 new gene panels.