Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) today announced that the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has purchased 11 additional Genome Analyzers, increasing the organization’s total number of the Illumina sequencing platform to 37. The continued scale up on the Genome Analyzer will support the Sanger Institute’s many initiatives, such as its contribution to the 1000 Genome Project, which requires economical, accurate, and rapid sequence generation.

“The Sanger Institute has an important international role in producing and analysing genomic data. That role is founded in DNA sequencing and we will meet new challenges by investing in appropriate new technologies,” said Professor Julian Parkhill, Ph.D., Director of Sequencing at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. “We are expanding our ability to contribute to major projects on human and mouse genome resequencing, pathogen genomics and genetics, and cancer genetics and to carry out our own research programmes within the Institute strategy.”

Funded principally by the Wellcome Trust, the largest independent charity in the United Kingdom (UK) and second largest medical research charity in the world, the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute is a principal genomics centre in Europe.

“The Sanger Institute’s decision to acquire 11 additional Genome Analyzers is further validation that our sequencing platform is delivering leading performance, and becoming the sequencing platform of choice,” said Christian Henry, Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Acting General Manager of Illumina’s Sequencing Business. “With its unmatched rate of daily output, ease of use, and proven paired-end sequencing capability, the Genome Analyzer will continue to provide the scalable solution researchers need to complete projects that were not possible one year ago.”

Designed for facilities of all sizes, the Genome Analyzer has experienced rapid adoption across genome centers worldwide, including individual research labs, core and service facilities, and biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. The system’s groundbreaking capabilities are further validated by the continued stream of papers published in peer-reviewed journals, including three whole-genome sequencing papers published in the November 6 issue of Nature magazine.

Generating over 20GB of data on internal systems, the Genome Analyzer offers the highest rate of daily output and the simplest and most user friendly workflow. The Genome Analyzer also offers the broadest set of supported applications, including those used to profile and discover novel miRNA, to create a high-resolution genome-wide map of DNA-protein binding sites, and to sequence a whole-human genome to greater than 30x coverage.

For more information about the Genome Analyzer and to read what customers are doing with Illumina’s sequencing technology, please visit www.illumina.com/sequencing.