Editor's note: With the split investment in Grail and Helix, and the addition of CEOs who are proficient in software, Illumina has set out to make genes a more important role in people's lives. This article is a glimpse of the leopard, let us better see this mysterious gene sequencing company real capacity, the article compiled from FastCompany, the author Christina Farr, Lei Feng network (search "Lei Feng network" public number concerned) compiled, may not be reproduced without permission .
This article mainly mentions how Illumina has established its position in the field of gene sequencing. The next section will introduce Illumina's current challenges and opportunities.
Although the cost of R&D was mentioned again, this did not prevent Illumina’s then-CEO Jay Flatley from continuously dispensing his saliva and blood into bottles for delivery to the company’s newly opened lab. Since January 2009, Illumina scientists have embarked on the journey of their first task—sequencing the entire human genome.
This internally named "Jaynome" project received prescriptions from Flatley's doctors to allow scientists to explore medical related things. The lab spent weeks and tens of thousands of dollars to measure the genome sequence of the group. Brad Sickler, a bioinformatician newly hired by the company at the time, recalled: “We feel pressured and a lot of work is the first attempt.†Jay is one of the top ten people in the world who do deep sequencing.
Jaynome's experimental results herald some potential and challenges - the introduction of gene sequencing into medical diagnosis. Flatley said he had a condition known as "malignant hyperthermia," which causes the body to suddenly die in general anesthesia. “But if you understand it, this disease is 100% preventable,†Flatley later told us. “But hardly anyone knows this.†But Flatley knew this when he was young, or he couldn't survive his childhood. At that time, there was no reliable data to compare, and it was not easy to extract from 3.5 to 4 million variants.
All in all, the Jay- nyny project set up by Flatley takes the path of “collecting popular genetic information,†making the technology cheaper and better for the public. His company just played an important role in this regard.
A technician with a sequencing instrument is working in front of several rows of squeaky supercomputers in the company's internal laboratory
Noel Spirandelli/ Fast Company
If you have ever used 23andMe, Ancestry.com, or any other genetic testing service, it is likely that your genes have been measured by a $25 billion worth of bioinstrumentation equipment. As the leader in the field of DNA sequencing in the United States , Illumina has surpassed all competitors by selling its genetic assay hardware to medical developers worldwide.
Illumina was instrumental in reducing the cost of genetic testing from $100 million in 2001 to today's $1,000. "Nature" magazine once pointed out: "It not only surpassed Moore's Law, but also allowed once-crazy prophet to control their mouths." This process used to take several weeks, but now it can be done in a few days - the Illumina instrument (the HiSeq X Ten), which can be used once for 16 people, can complete a gene sequencing in just 3 days. A year later, this number reached 18,000.
With the growing knowledge of consumer genetics, the technology is now rapidly moving from the laboratory to hospitals, consulting rooms, and even families. The Illumina company, founded in 1998, is looking for ways to use new applications to harness the evolving clinical diagnostics and consumer markets and then become an integral part of an entire DNA ecosystem.
Like other large companies, Illumina's challenge is to continue to innovate in order to maintain its core competitiveness. The company has now opened a new chapter by announcing a series of "moon expedition" attempts: Helix and Grail. Helix and Grail will create an app store model (APP) on DNA information and pass early cancer screening results to each doctor's office. This past summer, experienced Apple senior executive Phil Schiller joined Illumina's board of directors, which undoubtedly also gave the bio-company a boost in the consumer market.
“The opportunities now face the equivalent of the Internet in the 1970s. It is exactly the same.â€
“We all experienced the cycle of computer technology. In the past it used to be a mainframe, then an office device. Now it's a phone, a TV, a car and a music player, all of which are computers.†Schiller said. Long before Schiller was responsible for Apple’s app store, he was a systems analyst at Massachusetts General Hospital. "I think the whole process of gene sequencing technology will also be a similar process, from very few laboratories to commercial environments, hospitals, and eventually to a technology that is often used in our lives."
Another major change was that Flatlye retired this summer after he had been in charge of the company for 17 years. The successor is Francis deSouza, a veritable MIT computer scientist who previously worked for Symantec and was recruited to expand the company's world map and develop software products for use on company equipment. DeSouza also takes the lead in making cultural changes, including providing employee benefits, such as 16 hours of paid volunteer time and free screening opportunities for undiagnosed diseases.
Under the leadership of Jay Flatley, Illumina turned defeat and became the undisputed leader in the market
However, critics have pointed out that it is a challenge for Illumina to expand the consumer market without violating consumer privacy. Startup companies have entered the clinical diagnostics market and obtained from "liquid biopsy" to "later cancer surveillance" (according to the research and market research firm, the business consulting company predicts that this market will reach 1 billion by 2020), for genetic diseases such as Down's Syndrome (which can reach 2.4 billion in the consumer market by the end of 2022), as well as a series of non-invasive pregnancy tests, etc. Most of these companies rely on Illumina's equipment for analysis in the diagnostic and consumer areas.
"I think entrepreneurs, investors and other companies are worried and doubtful about Illumina whether Illumina can beat competitors." Said John Stuelpnagel, co-founder and former CEO of Illumina. If Illumina is able to follow the plan fully and closely, many people predict that Illumina will usher in the next five years of gold.
"Only 3% of people know about their own genetic data," adds Jonathan Groberg, a biotech analyst at UBS. "This opportunity is equivalent to the situation that the Internet encountered in the 1970s. It is exactly the same."
| Hardware hidden in DNA
Illumina is headquartered in San Diego and is similar to Silicon Valley's Technology Park. The office is bright and transparent. Even though the day I visited was foggy, the staff had an unusually large work area. There were also coffee shops and cafeterias (meals are not free, which is a demonstration of the rational use of resources in a certain sense). . Senior managers work in small cubicles that are everywhere, without separate offices. In the first few weeks of his appointment, DeSouza, who was the CEO, narrowed the size of the executive management's compartment to communicate with colleagues. In this way, even high-level executives can break the schedule and accept any questions or suggestions from anyone at any time.
Francis deSouza recruited from Symantec to expand Illumina's software offering
As the former CEO of Illumina, Flatley has always been a symbol of the company's "culture of innovation". Both former employees and serving employees highly praise him. Now the company has grown to 5,000 employees and the annual budget is up to $2 billion. Back in late 2003, it was the fifth year after the company was founded. At that time, the company had almost no profit and was deeply involved in the fierce competition with bigger and more powerful companies.
After Flatley made a strategic decision to buy Solexa, everything began to change. Solexa is a British biotechnology startup with comprehensive sequencing technology. Since 2007, Illumina researchers have improved this core technology and established a globally distributed marketing network. The executive team has revised some processes to ensure that new products will develop rapidly in different regions.
"When our talents, methods, and product development strategies come together, we have demonstrated incredible innovation capabilities ." Stuelpnagel recalls, “This is a culture of innovation, and it is a healthy psychological suggestion that people are always aware that others are trying to surpass us.†In 5 years, many other competitors such as Roche (who was once a potential buyer of Illumina) Home) and Complete Genomics have all embarked on the fate of being extinct or being acquired.
In 2009, Flatley proposed to set up a government-licensed laboratory to test new equipment in the laboratory, make it available for next-generation sequencing technologies, and even be able to use it in medical diagnostics for special occasions.
In order to open the entire gene sequencing market, Flatley launched a consumer gene promotion project called UYG (Know Your Own - Gene Project) that provides deeper gene service than 23andMe or Ancestry, and of course this project needs to be charged cost. Participants spend less than $3,000 to know if they are resistant to a drug, such as Waterfarin, or a mutant gene that represents a possible breast or ovarian cancer. Illumina's Erica Ramos, a full-time genetic counselor working at UYG, told me they could find a significant mutation in 2% of the population. "In fact, most of our work now is to raise people's awareness of genes," she said.
The laboratory that completes gene sequencing displays a row of computers of various specifications and buzzing. One of them is called HiSep X Ten, which is almost the same size as an office copier. As a whole set of equipment, the price is up to 10 million US dollars. A total of 35 customers worldwide have at least one device, including the Garvan Medical Research Institute in Sydney and the Broad Institute in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They are sometimes referred to as the “X Ten Clubâ€.
Low-end instruments that fit more target users, like desktop computers, are sold to molecular biologists, pathologists, and oncology researchers at about $50,000 each.
Illumina has sold these instruments to schools, pharmaceutical companies, and bio companies and has captured 70% of the market for gene sequencing. During his tenure at Flatley as CEO, the product became prestigious due to stringent quality control, making Illumina the first company in 2014 to complete a $1000 genetic map.
“Now, Illumina is like an 800-pound gorilla in the genetics industry.†When asked about Illumina's influence, Joyce Tung, director of R&D at 23andMe, said.
“If I wasn’t at Illumina, I’ve never encountered such an excellent instrument,†added Gabriel Otte, founder and CEO of Freenome, Andreessen-Horowitz-backed genomics. “My doctoral research area is also a gene. learn."
Some biotechnology experts predict that with the steady price of the instrument, the core technology of gene sequencing will become commercialized, and even in the future it will become a worrying prospect. However, Flatley believes that this will not happen in the foreseeable future. "It will take a long time even if it happens."
In recent days, Illumina has faced severe competition from Thermo Scientific, Waltham, and Massachusetts for multinational companies that provide services ranging from anti-doping to GM crop production. And as it enters the clinical diagnostics market, Illumina will soon also face up with the European supplier QIAGEN. Of course, in more lucrative market areas, there will be many other emerging competitors, such as looking for chromosomal structural spots that may cause cancer diseases, or some inheritance that may be missed by short-chain reading techniques. Disease "long-chain-read" sequencing technology maker.
In addition, British Oxford Nanopore is also one of the potential opponents. The company specializes in producing compact, portable sequencing instruments and claims that the instrument can provide real-time reports for use in various areas including the National Space Station. Oxford Nanopore's long-chain DNA read technology measures changes in nucleotides through the nucleus by measuring current changes. Although it has brought hope in the rapid diagnosis of diseases such as Zika virus, critics have pointed out that the technique lacks accuracy.
From more than six experts I have talked about, in the near future, Illumina is unlikely to be knocked down by Oxford Nanopore or some other newly formed company. This is partly due to Illumina’s large investment in R&D, and other new biotech companies such as 10X Genomics have greatly expanded Illumina’s supply channels for gene sequencing applications. The other reason is that Illumina, like its earlier competitors, has tasted the advantage of using litigation to maintain its competitiveness.
After Illumina had successively surpassed $18 million in the Oxford Nanopore and undisclosed investment in 2010 in 2009, Illumina took back investment earlier this year and applied to sue the company, announcing that the British company's technology contained technology it had stolen from its patents. The Oxford Nanopore response has already been replied to the US International Trade Commission, claiming that the prosecution is similar to admitting that "the trade available on the mainframe and desktop computers is limited to use on smart phones", Illumina intends to stifle potential competitors and increase its monopoly. status. The company also told the committee that Flatley had previously participated in the company's board of directors as a legal advisor.
A few outside observers speculate that the real war is about whether Oxford Nanopore technology will someday replace Illumina's hardware and services in the genetic market. The lawsuit was closed in August.
Other observers believe that similar lawsuits are common in life sciences. For Illumina, for the past few years, it has also been sued by many of its larger competitors. On the one hand, large-scale biotechnology companies are under pressure from the rapid expansion of shareholders, on the one hand to avoid the pursuit of competitors in the industry.
From the current position, in fact, the relationship between Illumina and each existing genetic company is also a friend and friend. Although there were words in the interview that revealed Illumina’s fears of infringing its field, they were not willing to talk about it openly.
Groberg said: "As long as Illumina enters the clinical medicine market, it is inevitable that the lips and spears will be able to escape."
During the interview, one of the arguments I heard from Illumina repeatedly was that it would not compete with its customers. However, with its test on the new business of reproductive health, this concept does not seem to hold.
In 2013, Illumina’s acquisition of a company named Verinata Health for US$350 million caused a significant impact on the industry, (one executive called the move “inconceivableâ€), known as non-invasive prenatal In the area of ​​testing (NIPT), Verinata is, in a sense, a direct competitor of Illumina's customers. This is a technique that characterizes chromosome condition signs by analyzing fetal DNA in the mother's blood circulation. The technology is now worth $1 billion in the market and generates nearly a million sales a year.
I asked the Chief Commercial Officer of Illumina, Christian Henry, whether the acquisition of Verinita was a clear competitive move for other NIPT suppliers, especially some of the top clients of Illumina like Natera. "For us, the extent to which we compete with our customers is a fundamental issue," he answered with particular caution.
Henry stressed that the company is trying to avoid direct sales with doctors. Instead, Illumina chose to sell to laboratories or other NIPT companies that want to use the equipment. Despite this, considering that there are already many inbound players in this field and it is also highly controversial, it is not difficult to see why this is why other NIPT suppliers are threatened. "Illumina hopes to popularize NIPT testing capabilities in major laboratories. Of course, the choice is in their hands," Groberg added.
Via fastcompany
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