MGI (and Ultima Genomics)
So, unsurprisingly MGI have announced their intent to re-enter the US sequencing market. They appear to be timing the release of their instrument to coincide with the expiration of key Illumina (Solexa) IP. As reported by GenomeWeb:
“According to MGI, the ’973 patent, titled “Modified nucleotides,” is set to expire in August.”…“the model for the August release will be the DNBSeq-G400C, a version of the DNBSeq-G400 sequencer that is based on the firm’s newer, antibody-based sequencing chemistry, CoolMPS”
Using this platform MGI have suggested that they can provide $500 genomes. But critically, this isn’t MGIs highest throughput platform. And elsewhere they’ve stated that the DNBSEQ-T7 can deliver $100 genomes.
From what I’ve seen, the MGI error profile looks very similar to Illumina. Unlike Ultima, MGI don’t have specific homopolymers issues. And as they use reversible terminators reads are of a consistent length. The overall error rate seemed to be slightly higher, but not enough to cause issues.
This makes the MGI instruments a near drop in replacement for Illumina sequencing. GenomeWeb reported one group which used the same analysis pipeline on both Illumina and MGI datasets and generated comparable results:
“Looking at data from approximately 60 parent-child trios, Pastinen said his group also did not find significant differences between MGI sequencing and Illumina sequencing for structural variant detection, using the same sequence alignment and variant calling pipeline.”
From what I’ve heard, this is reasonably typical.
MGI and Ultima
I don’t want to overstate the impact of this announcement on Ultima’s prospects. But I suspect that Ultima’s claim of a “$100 Genome” isn’t as big a deal as some have suggested. In particular some providers have already been offering whole genomes for <$200, likely using MGI sequencing outside the US.
There may be some resistance to using MGI instruments. However, if MGI can offer a $100 genome on a “Illumina-like” platform, I suspect others can too.
Unlike Ultima, these platforms will be a cleaner drop in replacements for Illumina. We will likely see a number of players offering “Illumina-compatible” platforms with differing throughput specifications. This is great for users, as they will be able to easily switch between vendors to get the best deal.
However, using their current approach moving from Illumina to Ultima’s platform seems like more work. It’s possible (with some significant re-engineering) that Ultima could switch to an Illumina-style chemistry.
Or perhaps Ultima’s other advantages will be sufficiently compelling that users will move anyway?