2018 Global Sequencing Industry Top 10 Giants: Illumina Dominates, Thermo Fisher Scientific Ranks Second

Five years after successfully achieving the $1,000 genome, the sequencing field is still striving to reduce costs to $100, or even as low as $10.

Among sequencing companies in 2018, Veritas Genetics came closest to the $100 threshold. Last November, the company offered a significant discount on its myGenome Standard whole-genome sequencing service (including interpretation of results) to the first 1,000 customers nationwide, representing an 80% reduction from the usual price of $999. Although Veritas had planned a two-day promotion, it attracted 1,000 customers within just six hours. In an interview with Wired magazine, Veritas CEO Mirza Cifric stated, “We are sending a clear signal to the medical community that $99 genome sequencing will become a reality within three to five years. Some may believe it will still take ten years.”

However, as GEN reported earlier this year, the competition driving down sequencing costs may soon be replaced by another form of rivalry: companies will need to compete on their ability to integrate more powerful data interpretation tools, support embedded applications, and withstand various adverse conditions. This will require all sequencing companies, particularly the top ten gene sequencing firms, to avoid relying solely on price wars while striving to attract customers, especially if they aim to expand their business beyond research laboratories into clinical settings.

In March this year, Grand View Research predicted that the NGS market would grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.78% in the coming years, rising from $8.49 billion last year to $19.7 billion by 2025. This growth is driven not only by clinical applications, such as the use of this technology in companion diagnostics, but also by expansion into emerging markets.

Below are GEN’s Top 10 Sequencing Companies, Ranked by Revenue:

2017 Revenue: £13.8 million (US$18.1 million)

Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ revenue in 2017 was more than three times higher than the £4.5 million ($5.9 million) recorded in 2016. The company also secured two significant rounds of financing in 2018: a £50 million ($65.6 million) equity investment from Amgen in October 2018, and a £100 million ($131.2 million) financing round completed in March 2018. Last month, Clear Labs agreed to integrate Oxford Nanopore Technologies’ GridION X5 DNA sequencing technology into its Clear Safety NGS platform, aiming to conduct food safety testing for pathogens and other contaminants. Also in March, Oxford Nanopore Technologies moved its new R10 nanopore from internal use to an early access program, with the resulting feedback intended to inform the product’s eventual full-scale launch.

2018 Revenue: $78.626 million

On February 11, PacBio announced its latest annual revenue, representing a year-over-year decline of approximately 16% from $93.468 million in the same period last year. PacBio’s net loss for the previous year amounted to approximately $100 million, exceeding the $92.189 million reported in 2017. Illumina is set to acquire PacBio for $1.2 billion, aiming to expand its product portfolio through PacBio’s long-read sequencing technology, with the transaction expected to close by mid-2019. Meanwhile, PacBio highlighted improvements to its Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT®) sequencing technology, including the launch of an early access program for the SMRT Cell 8M and the new Sequel II platform. The next-generation chip increases the number of reaction wells from 1 million to 8 million.

2018 Revenue: KRW 110.299 billion (USD 97.066 million)

Macrogen, a South Korean sequencing company, announced that its NGS clinical laboratories and precision medicine centers at its Seoul headquarters and Bundang facility received Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (CLIA) certification in late 2018. CEO Kap-Seok Yang stated on December 20, “This provides us with an advantage in building genomic big data within global healthcare institutions.” Last year, these Macrogen laboratories obtained College of American Pathologists (CAP) accreditation, and the company’s revenue increased by 8% compared to 2017. On March 19, Macrogen partnered with Australian biotechnology company Microba to develop a shotgun metagenomics sequencing service designed to analyze all microorganisms in the gut microbiome. The service was initially launched in South Korea and has since expanded to other global markets, including the United States.

FY2018 Revenue: $121 million (as of September 30, 2018)

Brooks Automation acquired GENEWIZ for approximately $450 million in cash, with the transaction completed on November 15, 2018. The company’s revenue grew by approximately 33% from $91 million in fiscal year 2017, and management projected that revenue for the current fiscal year would exceed $140 million. In the first quarter following the acquisition, the company reported revenue of $33 million, of which $16 million was attributable to Brooks Automation. Driven by a 30% increase in next-generation sequencing (NGS) and a 15% increase in Sanger sequencing, this represented a 20% year-over-year growth rate.

2018 Revenue: $140 million

On February 5, QIAGEN announced its next-generation sequencing (NGS) sales figures for the fourth quarter and full year of 2018, projecting that NGS revenue would reach $190 million in 2019, representing a 36% increase. Last year, QIAGEN launched the QIAseq TMB Panel, designed to predict patient responses to immuno-oncology drugs, as well as the QIAseq FastSelect RNA Removal Kit, which aims to facilitate faster and simpler library preparation for RNA sequencing. During the company’s fourth-quarter 2018 earnings call, CEO Peer M. Schatz told analysts, “Our fully automated next-generation sequencing system, GeneReader NGS, provides a cost-effective and optimized automated NGS solution for clinical testing, as evidenced by its sales growth in 2018.”

2018 Revenue: $146 million

10x Genomics reported the fastest year-over-year revenue growth, doubling from $71 million in 2017. In January this year, 10x Genomics announced a $35 million Series D financing round, bringing its total capital raised to $243 million. The round was led by Meritech Capital Partners, with participation from Fidelity and Wells Fargo. 10x Genomics expanded its business scale by launching six new flagship products and acquiring two companies. The company acquired epigenetics firm Epinomics in August 2018, followed by the acquisition of spatial genomics technology developer Spatial Transcriptomics two months later.

2018 Revenue: Approximately $250 million

Agilent stated that its NGS-related business generated annual revenue of approximately $250 million in 2018. This accounted for 26.5% of the $943 million in revenue reported by Agilent’s Diagnostics and Genomics Group (DGG) in 2018. Last year, Agilent identified clinical oncology based on NGS as a high-growth market where DGG holds a leading position. On February 20, while reporting first-quarter financial results to analysts, Agilent President and CEO Mike McMullen remarked, “Our NGS-related business again achieved double-digit growth this quarter.”

Revenue for Q4 2017 and Q1–Q3 2018: RMB 2.463 billion (USD 366.348 million).

BGI Genomics plans to announce its full-year 2018 results by April 25. However, the company’s performance over the most recent four quarters shows a nearly 18% increase compared to RMB 2.095 billion (USD 311.607 million) in 2017. BGI Genomics stated that it conducts more than one million cell-free DNA tests annually. In the United States, BGI Genomics offers whole human genome sequencing with prices starting at USD 600. On March 11, BGI Genomics disclosed plans to commercialize Natera’s Signatera molecular residual disease (MRD) test in China and, through a USD 50 million partnership, to offer reproductive health testing in specific markets using BGI sequencing instruments.

2017 Revenue: “Slightly Below” $418.36 Million

Thermo Fisher Scientific has not provided updated data on NGS business revenue since last year. The company’s CEO, Marc N. Casper, told analysts that the NGS business “accounts for less than 2% of our revenue.” This proportion may be higher, as the company launched its benchtop series of NGS instruments, the Ion GeneStudio S5, in January 2018. Thermo Fisher includes NGS within its Life Sciences Solutions segment, which generated $6.269 billion of the company’s total revenue of $24.358 billion in 2018. Thermo Fisher stated that clinical NGS sequencing was one of the key drivers of growth in the Life Sciences Solutions segment during the fourth quarter, alongside two other major businesses: bioproduction and biosciences.

2018 Revenue: $3.333 billion

Illumina CEO Francis deSouza told analysts at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference earlier this year that the company would continue its efforts to reduce sequencing costs to $100, although he did not specify a timeline. Illumina attributed its revenue growth—up 21% from 2017—to the broader adoption of its instruments in clinical, research, and applied markets. Recently, David Bentley, Illumina’s Vice President and Chief Scientist, revealed that the company plans to transition from its HiSeq sequencers to its flagship NovaSeq platform for the UK’s 100,000 Genomes Project later this year, once validation is complete.

References:

[1] Top 10 Sequencing Companies