Top Ten Sequencing Companies in the World

The NGS market is expanding rapidly with advances in sequencing technology, increased sequencing applications, expanded use, and reduced sequencing costs. A group of companies have gained a foothold in the ever-changing NGS market and are beginning to make a profit. This article focuses on introducing top ten sequencing companies in the world.

Illumina

2017 revenue: $2.752 billion

After years of occupying the high-end NGS market, Illumina launched the compact iSeq 100 sequencer in January. Unlike previous sequencing systems, the iSeq 100 costs less than $20,000, allowing almost all laboratories to use NGS. Last year, Illumina launched a second FDA-approved and CE-IVD-certified NGS system, the NextSeqTM 550Dx; it also partnered with Golden Mile Medicine to apply its NGS technology to new oncology and genetic disease tests.

Thermo Fisher Scientific

2017 revenue: less than $418 million

The CEO of Thermo Fisher, Marc Casper, revealed the approximate size of the NGS business on January 31. He said that the NGS business is less than 2% of the company's revenue, but this is a well-growth business. At the beginning of this year, Thermo Fisher launched two sequencers based on semiconductor sequencing technology - Ion GeneStudio S5 Prime and Ion GeneStudio S5 Plus. At the same time, Thermo Fisher has also partnered with Illumina to produce the "AmpliSeq for Illumina" product.

BGI Genomics

2017 revenue: 2.095 billion yuan ($332 million)

Huada Gene CEO Yin Wei said at the JPMorgan Health Conference in early January that Huada Gene has provided personal genome sequencing services at a price of US$600 based on the self-sequencing platform BGISEG-500, and has delivered tens of thousands of cases. He also announced a "lifecycle schedule" based on SMRT sequencing. The program aims to mine the data through gene sequencing, discover the laws of life hidden behind the data, and finally realize the grand goal of “digital animals and plants, digital earth”.

Agilent Technologies

2017 revenue: approximately $230 million

The Agilent Technologies Diagnostics and Genomics Division (DGG) earned $772 million in 2017, with less than 30% of sequencing, including NGS-targeted enrichment. Last week, Agilent signed a definitive agreement with Lasergen, the developer of DNA sequencing technology: Agilent acquired the remaining stake in Lasergen for $105 million. In 2016, Agilent made an initial investment in the privately held company, acquired a 48% stake in the company and had a two-year buy option for its remaining equity.

QIAGEN

2017 revenue: more than $115 million

QIAGEN announced sales figures for the NGS business in early January and its full-year 2017 results, as well as this year's sales target: a 22% increase to more than $140 million. CEO Peer Schatz said, “As we release new reagents and expand the detection menu, we expect GeneReader to have a strong growth trend. Our medium-term goal is to account for more than 20% of the oncology desktop sequencing market.” Last month QIAGEN announced a collaboration with Natera to develop prenatal screening for free DNA detection based on GeneReader.

Macrogen

2017 revenue: 101.8 billion won ($95.4 million)

As the largest sequencing company in Korea, Macrogen has been established for 20 years. “Based on our high-quality genetic analysis services, this year we will accelerate the development of future medical innovations and increase our business strategy flexibility in gene therapy,” CEO Moon Ji-young said in a statement. The company has a branch office in Maryland, USA, with sales of 3 billion won ($2.8 million) in 2017. Last year, Macrogen opened its second branch in Europe in Madrid.

Pacific Biosciences

2017 revenue: $93.5 million

Compared with 2016's $78.6 million, PacBio's product and service revenues rose 19%, one of the key factors being China's growth. In 2016, it only accounted for 10% of total revenue, and in 2017 it suddenly soared to 30%. This year, Huada Gene and Annoyouda made a large-scale purchase of the Sequel sequencer. PacBio CEO Michael Hunkapiller said that one of the reasons for the rapid growth in China is that customers are more concerned with the sequencing of the plant and animal genomes, and PcBio's long reading length is particularly helpful for reading highly reproducible polyploid genomes.

Genewiz

2017 revenue: $83.1 million

Genewiz focuses on the genomics services of the scientific research system and has been growing since its inception in 1999. Last year, the company expanded its clinical genomics testing with the launch of the CLIA Sanger sequencing service and introduced Amplicon-EZ, which is designed to provide researchers with an economical, fast and interactive solution for sequencing mixed PCR products.

10x Genomics

2017 revenue: $71 million

Compared to 2016, 10x Genomics' revenue has more than doubled. At the JPMorgan Chase Health Conference in early January, the company announced a new version of its Chromium de novo assembly solution, including a new version of the assembly software Supernova 2.0. The company's products also include Linked-Reads, a sequencing technology that uses short read length sequencing data to provide long segment information.

Oxford Nanopore Technologies

2016 revenue: 4.5 million pounds ($6.3 million)

In March, Oxford Nanopore Technologies raised £100 million (approximately $140 million) from a number of international investors. The funds will be used to support the company's next phase of commercial expansion, including the construction of a high-volume, high-tech manufacturing facility near Oxford. According to reports, Oxford Nanopore's order volume has tripled last year, reaching approximately $23.5 million, and is expected to triple this year to $75 million.

Sequencing technique plays a very crucial role in the market, a majority of biotech companies are making great progresses just like mushrooms.

Recommended company:

Creative Biolabs

With more than ten-year experience in offering services and products related to antibody production, Creative Biolabs is also supplying customers with sequencing services, such as denovo sequencing, de novo protein sequencing and de novo igg sequencing, etc.