Los Angeles, CA February 19, 2015 – AGBT 2015 is right around the corner. There are rumors on Wall Street that a NGS manufacturer may have a big announcement this year. We conducted a survey with 30 NGS aficionados to see if the wisdom of the crowd can make an educated guess of what people will remember from AGBT 2015. Highlights of the 2014 conference can be found here (link).We ask people to select 3 out of the following 10 companies (+ others) that they believed would make a big splash at AGBT 2015.

• 10X Genomics, perhaps clarifying its commercialization plan
• BGI, perhaps launching one (or both) of its sequencing systems
• Fluidigm, perhaps announcing the next generation of its C1 system
• Illumina, perhaps launching its NeoPrep library prep system
• NabSys, perhaps announcing a new platform or new chemistry
• Oxford Nanopore, perhaps announcing the development of a new chemistry with decreased error rate (or other news)
• PacBio, perhaps announcing a new system or new chemistry
• Qiagen, perhaps clarifying the capabilities of its Genereader and clinical workflow
• Roche (Genia), perhaps making an announcement related to Genia, Stratos Genomics or its recent Foundation Medicine investment
• Thermo Fisher (Ion Torrent), perhaps unveiling its P III chip
• Other

The answers of the survey can be visualized in the figured below.

<a href='#'><img alt='Draft2B ' src='https:&#47;&#47;public.tableau.com&#47;static&#47;images&#47;AG&#47;AGBTSurvey&#47;Draft2B&#47;1_rss.png' style='border: none' /></a>

In addition, our panel of experts offered a number of interesting commentary (redacted):

• 10x Genomics:

“It’s not a rumor that 10x Genomics will make an announcement. What is uncertain is the magnitude of the announcement. This will put some pressure on Genia, PacBio and ONT”“It will be interested to see what the cost of getting long reads will be on 10x in terms of price per sample, and whether a tax on the data a la moleculo is necessary”

• BGI:

“I can see BGI announcing that their platform is available for sale during the conference”

• Fluidigm:

“Fluidigm may be launching a new platform, and if so, they may have an upgrade path for the early adopters”

• Illumina:

“ILMN already announced everything at JP Morgan”“I’m expecting ILMN to be working on a lower-cost platform based on their 2-color chemistry. They might announce it at a cancer conference later this year if it’s the target market. They may also announce strides in long reads and automated library prep”“ILMN may be announcing something based on their Avantome acquisition back in the days”

• NabSys:

“I am not sure about these guys. It seems like they have a long way to go before the system has any relevance, but when they make it, it could be huge”

• Oxford Nanopore:

“ONT has to present something this year. They will most likely need more money to successfully commercialize their platform, and that’d be a good time for them to be raising this cash if the data from early access customers is convincing”“I expect a fair amount of data from early users”

• Qiagen:

“The GeneReader would have to be a radical game changer in order to unset Illumina, which is really entrenched”

• PacBio:

“PacBio is a gold sponsor this year, so they must have something up their sleeves”“My guess is PacBio and Fluidigm will have significant announcements. Perhaps they will announce a collaboration on single cell sequencing”

• Roche:

“Roche has been very active in the NGS space in the last few months, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they announced something, maybe in collaboration with PacBio following their deal”

• Thermo Fisher:

“What would be big news – would be the full blown PII being ready – with long reads on both the PI and PII. 400 bp reads on the PII chip would get Ion Torrent back in the game to some extent. The PII needs to launch with a full 64GB of capacity or more. If they announce that it is ready for immediate purchase and then have a ‘one more thing’ – saying they have the preliminary data on the PIII and that it is going to be ready by Q3, with a full 128 GB plus capacity then maybe Ion Torrent can start to create some serious buzz again.”

• Other companies: Quantum Biosystems (2), GenCell, Clic, Quantapore, Base4, Noblegen, HGT Molecular, Cellular Research, Genapsys

“I expect Clic to announce a smaller cheaper box”We’re looking forward to the excitement, and will be blogging daily from the meeting!Disclaimer: Some of the companies listed above are DeciBio clients or customers

Author: Stephane Budel, Partner at DeciBio, LLCConnect with Stephane Budel on Google+https://plus.google.com/+StephaneBudel