Novogene Doubles Its Fleet Of PacBio Sequencers

By Bio-IT World Staff 

August 3, 2017 | Yesterday Pacific Biosciences announced that Novogene had agreed to purchase 10 Sequel Systems, giving the DNA sequencing service provider the capacity to run up to 20 Sequel Systems at a time. Novogene is the largest user of PacBio’s Sequel Systems in the world. The service provider has ramped its use of the system dramatically since earlier in the year when it acquired access to the first 10 Sequel Systems through the Nanjing Yangzi State-Owned Investment Group in China.

The Sequel System, based on PacBio’s unique Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) technology, provides an unmatched depth of genetic information through exceptionally long sequencing reads, uniform coverage, and the highest consensus accuracy available today. The technology allows scientists to go beyond fragmented draft genomes and generate the most comprehensive de novo assemblies.

“The overwhelming demand for SMRT Sequencing in the few months since we began running the Sequel Systems has required us to double our capacity in a short amount of time,” said Ruiqiang Li, Ph.D., Founder and CEO of Novogene, in a joint press release. “Some of the large projects we have planned include building a database of structural variants in 1,000 Chinese individuals as part of the Chinese precision medicine initiative. In addition, we have partnered with the Global Ant Genomics Alliance to sequence 300 different species of ants to provide a comprehensive look at genomic diversity in ant genera.”

Michael Hunkapiller, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of PacBio added: “Novogene has very quickly become the largest user of our Sequel platform, and is now operating the largest SMRT Sequencing service center in the world. We are delighted that they have successfully ramped up their utilization of the systems so quickly, and that high demand for SMRT Sequencing services in China has led them to already increase their capacity.”