AGBT 2021: A Spatial Foundation

I'll call it now -- the big buzz at this year's AGBT will be around spatial profiling.  Trust me, it's not just a hunch.  The two current players in the field -- nanoString and 10X Genomics -- both have significant presence in the virtual conference.  Don't be surprised to see more players on the field -- just sayin'

PacBio With SoftBank's $900M: How Might TheyWork?

Pacific Biosciences continued its roll of successful business development, snagging $900M from Japan's SoftBank two weeks ago.  Combined with a recent secondary stock offering and a major deal with Invitae, PacBio has gone from their self-proclaimed near-derelict status during the Illumina acquisition attempt saga to rolling in cash.

More Details on 10X's Sample Profiling Trident

10X Genomics had an online event Wednesday called Xperience (as far as I could tell no Jimmy Hendrix music was used, a missed opportunity!) to lay out their development roadmap.  This largely paralleled the presentation given at J.P. Morgan, but there were a few new bits and of course much more technical detail to whet the appetites of scientists -- and judging from a number of very positive tweets I saw today they were successful in that goal. Some of the 10X management was kind enough to walk me through the deck earlier this week as well as permission to borrow images from it, so this summary is based on that as well as watching the presentation.  While their name is 10X, the company emphasized progress on three axes: scale, resolution and access and that progress across the three different platforms. 

Could I See Myself at J.P. Morgan?

There's a question that others pop my way pretty much every year around J.P. Morgan: would I ever attend myself?  I'll confess it never occurred to me before I was asked, but that isn't necessarily a deal breaker.  I foolishly didn't attend AGBT until 2013 when Alexis Borisy (then CEO of Warp Drive) suggested I go -- I think it was mostly because he thought it was a good investment and probably only secondarily to keep me off the ski slopes for a week -- I shattered my knee just after AGBT 2012 ended.  It's an interesting but complex question which I will answer one way here, but freely admit that over coffee I could be nudged one way or the other.

Why I Hated One Genapsys Slide

I claimed in my Miscellanea piece that I was one post away from being done with J.P. Morgan -- oops, forgot I had drafted a minor screed on data display which I'll push out before the last piece - particularly since I hinted I would be taking Genapsys to task on this subject.  Unexpectedly good timing too: maybe new Genapsys CEO Jason Myer's first big initiative can be to fix this plot!

J.P. Morgan: Miscellania

Before J.P. Morgan is truly a month ago I should clean up some loose ends as a penultimate post driven by this year's virtual conference (the last post isn't exactly time sensitive).  In contrast to the single company focused items that preceded it, this is a grab bag of minor observations and notes.