Illumina edges closer to $100 genome with NovaSeq X rollout

The anticipated launch of Illumina's new NovaSeq X series sequencers drew largely favourable reviews in the early going as health tech industry watchers pick through system details and pricing. The company, which unveiled the production-scale NovaSeq X and NovaSeq X Plus machines at its inaugural Illumina Genomics Forum, says the systems will "enable faster, more powerful and more sustainable sequencing."

Evercore ISI analysts remarked that "expectations were high…[and] Illumina did not disappoint," with NovaSeq X Plus able to generate 20,000 whole genomes a year – about 2.5 times the throughput of its older machines – while the cost has been brought down by around 60%, within reach of the company's long-promised $100-per-genome goal. Illumina said costs with the NovaSeq X series would range from less than $200 per genome, with discounts for bulk use, to $240 for a higher-quality analysis.

"Nearly every single component – chemistry, chip, packaging, hardware – was changed to make this system user friendly," the Evercore analysts said, noting "the key question for investors is whether this is meaningful/met the bar...we think it did." Analysts said one pet peeve was the need to load both flow cells simultaneously, but X and X Plus chips can be loaded independently, while the "eight lanes per flow cells give flexibility in experiments." They noted that there is also no longer a need for cold storage when shipping lyophilised reagents.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the new machines would cost about $1.25 million each, with availability beginning in the first quarter of 2023, but Evercore said the "key metric for us will be initial customer reaction and order trends…and whether the new system will enable larger studies and expand the market."

Competition from startups

In other comments, Barclays noted that while NovaSeq X series improvements in terms of "output, cost and accuracy are very impressive," these were "in-line with what was messaged over the course of the year." At Piper Sandler, analyst David Westenberg said that the cheaper sequencing cost "will suffice," although it is "probably not the magnitude" some had expected, after Ultima Genomics emerged from stealth earlier this year claiming that the era of the $100 genome had already arrived thanks to its UG 100 platform (see Wider View: Has Illumina finally met a worthy rival in Ultima?) Meanwhile, Westenberg also suggested Illumina's new series will likely appeal more to academic researchers than clinicians, but could still create double-digit sales and earnings growth for the company next year.

"This will be a huge force in terms of significantly increasing accessibility to genomics in a number of ways," remarked CEO Francis deSouza. "It will democratise access to genomics by allowing sequencing to be offered to hospitals and researchers at much lower prices," deSouza said, and although Illumina is still some steps away from being able to deliver the sought-after $100 genome, he thinks the latest advances put it "much closer" to that goal. 

Also unveiled at the genomics forum were NovaSeq 6000 Dx and Illumina Complete Long-Reads. According to the company, the NovaSeq 6000 platform is the first FDA-registered and CE-marked in vitro diagnostic high-throughput sequencer, while the long-read sequencing technology, formerly known as Infinity, is expected to "accelerate access to the remaining 5% of genic regions" via speed, scale and low DNA input.