A Chinese company unveils a powerful new sequencer. But can it compete in the U.S.?
Nearly two years ago, the San Diego-based genomics giant Illumina reaffirmed its dominance of the DNA sequencing market when it announced a fast and powerful new machine, called the NovaSeq, that’s since been adopted in labs all over the world.
On Thursday, at a genomics conference in China, a Chinese company called BGI unveiled its own new machine. That machine, the company said, can sequence a whole genome in 24 hours. It can generate six terabytes of sequencing data — about as much data as a person would use watching Netflix nonstop for half a year — over that period. And, again, according to the company, it can do it all with the utmost precision.
All of which could, at the right price, make BGI a very fierce competitor for Illumina — and possibly drive the already-plummeting cost of sequencing down even further.
“It seems that the race is on, and geneticists everywhere are the big winners,” said Christopher Mason, a geneticist at Weill Cornell Medicine.
The race is being closely watched by scientists and clinicians. Cheaper, faster sequencers,
