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Complete Genomics Secures New Customers, 500+ Orders for Whole Genome Sequences

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by Aaron Saenz on February 22nd, 2010
complete-genomics

CG wants to hit 5000 sequences by the end of 2010. Well they already have 500 on order. Time to hit the lab!

Complete Genomics has made some heavy predictions about the number of whole genome sequences it will complete in the next five years, so you know we have to keep tabs on them and see if they’re going to live up to their claims. According to a recent press release, CG has increased the number of current customers from around 10 to more than 30. These new customers include the University of North Carolina, the Institute of Cancer Research UK, the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, and many others. With all the new business CG has booked orders exceeding 500 whole genome sequences. That’s a pretty good step towards achieving their goal of 5000 WGS for 2010. While Complete Genomics still has a long way to go before it will hit the 5k or the 1 million mark, this new round of orders is good evidence that they’re becoming the dominant force for sequencing whole human genomes.

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Illumina and Complete Genomics Competing for Sequencing Dominance

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by Aaron Saenz on January 14th, 2010
HiSeq 2000

Illumina recently unveiled it's new sequencer, which shows some significant improvements.

The ongoing race to become the household name for whole genome sequencing is speeding up. Industry giants Illumina (ILMN) and Complete Genomics have both made recent announcements which demonstrate how serious this competition really is. The most recent battleground is the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in San Francisco where thousands of investors and billions of dollars are at stake. Illumina unveiled a new sequencing machine, the HiSeq 2000, which has 30x coverage and 2×100 base pair read length. Importantly, it only requires $10k in materials to process each sample and can sequence two entire genomes over a period of about 8 days. Complete Genomics has countered with some impressive news of their own. This fall they announced the sequencing of 3 individual genomes at an average materials price of just $4400, and future whole genome sequencing (WGS) will be sold at just $20k per sample with large price breaks as order sizes increase. According to their twitter feed, CG told investors at JP Morgan this week that they have delivered 50 genomes and plan to complete a whopping 5000 more in 2010. We’ll get a chance to learn more about Complete Genomics plans for this year when we interview CEO Cliff Reid at PMWC next week. It’s a fierce battle between these two genetic giants, but the war is likely to lead to some amazing benefits to you and I.

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Yale Scientists Diagnose Illness Through Genome Sequencing

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by Aaron Saenz on October 27th, 2009
For the first time, researchers at Yale have used whole genome sequencing to make a clinical diagnosis.

For the first time, researchers at Yale have used whole genome sequencing to make a clinical diagnosis.

A doctor has some tried and true methods of helping her diagnose a disease: examining the lymph nodes, taking your temperature, that whole “turn your head and cough” thing. Now, we need to add one more: whole genome sequencing. Researchers at Yale have sequenced the genome of a patient in order to diagnose his condition, reportedly for the first time. Richard Lifton and his team examined the protein encoding portion of an infant’s DNA to determine whether or not he had Bartter’s syndrome (he didn’t). Though still too expensive to use in everyday clinical work, Lifton has shown that whole genome analysis is an effective and relatively quick method to diagnose some diseases. We’re going to be seeing a lot more of this.

The costs of whole genome sequencing has been falling since the completion of the Human Genome Project. Industry leaders Complete Genomics and Illumina are pushing prices below $50,000 per genome and we could see it drop to $1000 within the next year. Cheap genome sequencing will open up new avenues of diagnosis, but could also allow individuals greater insight into which diseases they should be on the lookout for. IBM announced that it will use silicon chip technology to speed up whole genome sequencing, and we’ve already seen a handheld device that finds special gene variations using CMOS components. As genetic analysis gets faster and cheaper, the medical system will have to adjust to take advantage of the new information, hopefully with amazing results.

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