BGI strikes back at Illumina in tit-for-tat patent infringement battle

A subsidiary of the Chinese sequencing giant BGI is filing a patent infringement suit agains the US sequencing giant. The BGI subsidiary, Complete Genomics, filed its complaint in the the District Court of Deleware, claiming infringement on a patent for “methods and compositions for efficient base calling in sequencing reactions,” which is all pretty central to high throughput sequencing. This appears to be a response to Illumina filing a complaint earlier this month against BGI Europe and Latvia MGI Tech, another BGI subsidiaries, earlier this year. These are probably just the early stages of what is likely to be a long series of antagonistic maneuvers between giants. It is unlikely that this Coke-versus-Pepsi style competition will do much to reduce the dominance of these groups, but one can hope that as this battle plays out some of the smaller sequencing players will grow and insert a little more competition into the market.

All the links in this post are from Genome-Web, another excellent genome news source.

WuXi NextCODE expanding Illumina sequencing capabilities

WuXi NextCODE Launches New State-of-the-art Genetic Analysis Laboratory in U.S. with Illumina's New TruSight 500™ Assay

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and SHANGHAI, March 30, 2019 /PRNewswire/ --  WuXi NextCODE, a global genomic data and insights company, is expanding its laboratory footprint into the U.S. with the opening of a state-of-the-art, CLIA-certified and CAP-accredited genetic analysis laboratory in Woburn, Massachusetts.  The new laboratory is geographically close to WuXi NextCODE's U.S. office in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

"This new laboratory helps us provide our customers with the access to next generation sequencing for clinical trials around the world, under the roof of one single, highly respected organization," says Rob Brainin, Chief Executive Officer of WuXi NextCODE. "Our global lab footprint also ensures a seamless unified workflow with a single chain of custody, from sample management, standard operating procedures, rigorous implementation of quality systems, to analytics and standardized reporting, in the U.S., Asia and the E.U."

As the first CAP/CLIA/ISO 15189 certified laboratory in China, the company's Shanghai laboratory already offers comprehensive next generation sequencing (NGS) clinical and discovery research services. WuXi NextCODE has also recently acquired a large scale NGS laboratory in Dublin, Ireland, which is already CAP-accredited and anticipated to be CLIA-certified in the third quarter of 2019.

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Illumina retaliates against BGI

Illumina Files Patent Infringement Suit Against BGI in Germany

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 29, 2019--Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) today announced that it has filed a patent infringement suit against BGI Group’s subsidiary, Latvia MGI Tech SIA, in the Düsseldorf Regional Court in Germany. The complaint alleges that BGI’s sequencing products, including the BGISeq-500, MGISeq-2000, and related chemistry reagents, infringe EP 1 530 578 B1. This patent covers Illumina’s proprietary sequencing-by-synthesis chemistry.

“Illumina will not tolerate the unauthorized, infringing use of its patented technology. Illumina filed this suit to defend the substantial investments we have made in our industry leading sequencing technology, as validated in our global intellectual property portfolio. We will continue to monitor the field and file patent suits where appropriate when our patents are infringed,” said Charles Dadswell, Senior Vice President and General Counsel for Illumina.

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Origins and Evolution of Mental Health Genetic Variants

Illumina and the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre Collaborate to Generate One of the Largest Ancient Genome Datasets to Decode the Genetic Origins and Evolution of Mental Health Issues

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) and the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark partner to explore the relationship between the evolutionary history of select mental and neurological disorders and infectious pathogens. One of the first projects of its kind worldwide, the endeavor aims to acquire new knowledge in terms of the medical and biological understanding of special factors underlying the development of human neuropsychiatric diseases through the ages. Ultimately, the project may provide a new approach to the development of medicines and other therapeutic treatments for mental and neurological conditions.

Where do brain disorders come from? In an effort to shed light on the role of microbes in the pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric illnesses, such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia, Professor Eske Willerslev and his team will build one of the largest genomic datasets of its kind, by complete DNA mapping of thousands of ancient Eurasian human remains. The data will be obtained from bones and teeth, the oldest remains dating back 10,000 years.

The international, multi-disciplinary team of scientists, which includes specialists in ancient genomics, neuro-genetics, population genetics, archaeology, linguistics, and experts in brain health, among others, will focus on creating two unique subsets of genomic data. The first panel is a 5,000 ancient human genomes panel. The second panel will consist of ancient pathogen DNA that is associated with human diseases. Both panels, which will be made publicly available, will together advance our understanding of the evolution of disease variance and its interaction with the human genome and pathogen pressure. The project will generate and analyze one of the largest sets of ancient human and pathogen genome panels ever created.

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Read additional coverage HERE…

NGS-heavy investigation of Neuropsychiatric Disease

Illumina, University of Copenhagen to Study Genetic Evolution of Neuropsychiatric Disease

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Illumina said today that it is working with the Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre at the University of Copenhagen to study how infectious pathogens influenced the evolutionary history of certain mental and neurological disorders.

An international, multi-disciplinary team including specialists in ancient genomics, neurogenetics, population genetics, archaeology, linguistics, and brain health will create two subsets of genomics data: one consisting of 5,000 ancient human genomes, and another consisting of ancient pathogen DNA associated with human diseases. Both datasets will be made publicly available.

The research team will use Illumina's NovaSeq 6000 system with S4 flow cells to sequence up to 20 billion ancient DNA fragments every two days, Illumina said.

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Liquid Biopsies help with Lung Cancer Diagnostics

Illumina-Sponsored Study Finds Liquid Biopsy Complements Tissue-Based Genotyping in Lung Cancer

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – The Illumina-sponsored Actionable Genome Consortium reported this week that cell-free DNA-based tumor genotyping for non-small cell lung cancer patients is concordant with tissue tumor-based genotyping most of the time and could be particularly useful in cases where acquiring a tissue biopsy is not feasible.

The group, which includes researchers from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Dan-Farber Cancer Center, MD Anderson Cancer Center, Grail, and Illumina, published its study this week in Annals of Oncology.

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MoneyWeek promotes Illumina

Illumina: shedding light on genetics

Illumina, the genome sequencing specialist, is a leader in a thriving market. Long-term investors should buy now, says Mike Tubbs.

The science of who we are and how we got here has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years. Take genome sequencing, the process of identifying the order of genetic ‘letters’ in an organism’s DNA, or genetic code; ‘reading’ the genetic structure, essentially.

The whole human genome consists of three billion of these letters. It cost about $3bn and took 13 years for the very first decoding of a human genome to be completed in 2003. But today high-tech machines supplied by Illumina (Nasdaq: ILMN) do the same job for less than $1,000 in mere days.

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