icon16: Precise Amplification for All!

I've loved the n6tec icon96 instrument since they first tipped me about it several years back.  The idea of running 96 independent PCRs in parallel was just too attractive; the instrument I'd always dreamed of. I never take payments from companies I write about, but probably could make a reasonable claim on commissions for a few icon96 units - I have a hard time not going into total fanboy mode.  But not everybody works in batches that are multiples of 96 - and now at ABRF n6 has launched an affordable option, the $29.5K icon16, to enable nearly any lab to access this technology.

Who's Going to Buy Roche Axelios?

After Roche's AGBT presentation, a key question for many is "who is going to buy an Axelios?".  Below are some thoughts on the topic, based around general classes of sequencing labs that exist in the world.

LinkedIn Laments 1 of N: Where's the API?

In my current role I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. A core task is to identify possible customers, and LinkedIn is rich hunting ground. I'm still sending each reach-out message individually (though admittedly often by pasting a message copied from a growing bank of crafted pitches), so even if I wasn't morally opposed to broad spamming I don't have the bandwidth for it. LinkedIn offers many ways for possible customers to reveal their interests - there's one's profile, any posts you make, comments on other posts, and what you hit like on.  Indeed, those last two can be particularly valuable as LinkedIn has some constraints on search results based on my localization within the broad LinkedIn connection graph, comments plus likes are categories which can leap me away from my parochial bounds.  Because I use LinkedIn so much, I of course have opinions about what I perceive as shortcomings, which I will periodically impose on the readers of this space. And today's is my frustration and degree of bewilderment that LinkedIn lacks an API.

ElysION Fields

Even before new CEO Francis Van Parys took the reins at Oxford Nanopore with the start of the month, the company had made yet another priming to the instrument lineup. The sample-to-answer ElysION has been sent to its eternal rest, presumably in the nicer part of Hades

Image courtesy of Rasmus Kirkegaard

Roche Axelios1 Run Pricing: Not A Knockout - Yet?

By far the most awaited news at AGBT was Roche's reveal of the pricing scheme for Axelios 1 consumables: what would be the structure and how much would different runs cost?  Indeed, Roche sequencing systems chief Mitu Chaudhary walked on to "The Final Countdown".  Roche did show its hand here, but stayed coy on the launch schedule beyond "Summer 2026".  Roche's pricing scheme clarified many questions, but also raised new ones.

Complete Genomics Sale: Gruyère or Emmental?

A bit of interesting news during AGBT was the announcement of the sale of Complete Genomics to Swiss Rockets, a Basel-based company which had last October licensed rights to Complete Genomic's CoolMPS technology for markets except Asia-Pacific.   This move is clearly designed to try to extract Complete Genomics from being banned in the future in US markets due to its perceived ties, in the minds of US lawmakers and politicians, to the government of China.  Swiss Rockets would acquire full rights to the CoolMPS technology in most markets and importantly the key personnel of Complete Genomics such as founder Rade Drmanac.  Complete Genomics will remain the branding for Swiss Rockets' genomics business.  So the question arises, will this be a deal which fixes Complete's issues in a manner as solid as a nice hunk of Gruyère, or will it be as full of holes as a delicious wedge of Emmental?

Ultima Genomics Solaris 2.0: Greater Version, Smaller Beads, Lose A Box

Ultima Genomics announced the 2.0 version of their Solaris chemistry at AGBT.  Perhaps the biggest splash here is that Solaris 2.0 relies on an isothermal amplification chemistry operating on smaller beads, making a path to higher numbers of reads per wafer and eliminating the separate (and very large) emulsion PCR instrument.