The $5000 Complete Genome and the Coming Genetic Microsofts

Earlier this week, Complete Genomics announced that it will offer complete human genome sequencing for the low, low price of $5000. To put this in perspective, Technology Review explains that “with a price tag of $100,000 to $1 million over the past two years, only a handful of human genomes have been sequenced to date.”

Technology Review also offers a detailed description of the sequencing technology, along with a helpful slideshow. The graphical explanation illustrates the bridges between cytogenetics, nanotechnology, and computer science that enable the breakneck pace of this sequencing technology.

The new technique also emphasizes the fact that Complete Genomics is set up not as an instrument company; rather, the company is set up as an information service provider:

Beyond its unique technology, Complete Genomics has also chosen an unusual business model: rather than selling instruments, as most sequencing companies have done, it plans to offer sequencing services through a commercial-scale genome center….The company is now building a massive data center to manage the immense volume of information it expects to generate; it’s planning to have a computer cluster containing 60,000 processors online by 2010.

And unlike sequencing companies like 23andMe and Navigenics, which market their services to consumers (and do not offer complete sequencing), Complete Genomics will not be encouraging Spit Parties.

Over at Genetic Future, there’s a provocative analysis of the near-term future of how companies in this market will likely evolve:

If Complete Genomics does indeed have the edge over its next-generation competitors, you can guarantee it won’t last long – all of the platforms are constantly being tweaked and improved, and there are new competitors on the way…. By focusing on service provision using a single, cutting-edge technology, the company may present an attractive option for pharmaceutical companies and other corporations looking to outsource their sequencing needs.

But here’s the kicker, as Genetic Future again points out—the likely result here is for profits to flow to companies that can offer the best interpretation of genetic information, not just the fastest and cheapest sequencing:

There’s an important message here between the lines: as technology drives the price of sequencing down, massive competition between platforms and service providers will almost certainly drive down the profit margins of sequencing providers. The real money will then be in providing sophisticated, up-to-date and easily understandable genome interpretation services. The best interpretations will come from the companies with the largest databases of genetic information, and with expertise in putting that complex information in the appropriate context for lay consumers. It seems to me that right now deCODEme has an advantage in the former race (given the formidable genomic data-sets assembled by its Icelandic parent company deCODE genetics), while 23andMe is winning the latter – but if 23andMe succeeds in attracting a wave of customers (and particularly disease patients) with its new low low prices, they may well ultimately gain the edge on both counts.

The historical parallel that springs to mind here is the bet Microsoft made in the late 70s to focus on software rather than hardware. The path to blockbuster success in the computer world didn’t turn out to be making the speediest desktop or the biggest hard drive; hardware costs for those products are still dropping after decades. The money was in the tools that helped people manipulate, interpret, and share information.

The not entirely unintuitive fact that the sweet spot for profits in genomics will be in interpretation services emphasizes the challenge for public policy that balances consumer protections with advancing cures. On the one hand, better genome studies will allow researchers to further understand the tangled relationship between genes, environment, disease, and disability. But as regulators have been sluggish to do their genetic due diligence on what Art Caplan calls “spitomics” companies, you can probably bet that spurious claims from companies offering misleading interpretations to consumers will multiply in the future.

Tags: computer science, genetics

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