After years of exotic and very expensive machines sequencing DNA, the genomics industry finally looks poised for its cell phone moment.
Soon, the business of genetics could look a lot like the commodity-driven mobile industry, with providers selling hardware on the cheap and relying on software, apps and diagnostics to drive revenue. And, as with the app-filled smartphones we keep close to us 24/7, genomics could finally become a much more intimate part of our lives.
With smartphones its the data and apps where the high value has accrued over time. In the case of sequencing, its going to be something similar, said Jorge Conde, CFO and co-founder of Knome, a genomic diagnostics company. The question, he says, then becomes whether the market looks like Apples walled garden, Microsofts more democratic model, or Google, where everything happens in the cloud.
In recent years, the industry has been working to solve the data storage and analysis bottlenecks resulting from an explosion of genetic data as sequencing costs have continued to drop. And they have succeeded. That means companies and institutions can finally focus on deciphering what all our genetic data actually means and how it might influence our risk for certain diseases. In other words, diagnostics is where the money is moving.
This shift is being catalyzed by a push by genomics, diagnostics and pharmaceutical giants to provide seamless services that include everything from genetic sequencing, to data analysis and interpretation, to reports medical providers can use in the clinic to make treatment decisions. The result might ultimately be the emergence of personalized medicine as the new standard of care.
Today, most companies have a specific niche. The full integrated package is being promised but is not really being offered, says Dr. Gianrico Farrugia, the director of the Mayo Clinic Center for Individualized Medicine. With the help of medical institutions and a growing number of companies setting out to provide these services, he says, were getting closer to that promise actually being realized.
Right now, the market for soup-to-nuts genomics is small less than $50 million but it could grow into a multi-billion dollar industry if insurance companies start paying for more kinds of genetic testing, says Andrew Kress, senior vice president of healthcare value solutions at IMS Health, a health information and technology services company.Payers are open to just about anything if someone can demonstrate its lowering the overall cost of care.
Other estimates suggest the market is already in thebillions but agree its far from reaching its peak. The use of genetics is on the rise at major medical centers like Stanford, Vanderbilt, Mount Sinai, and the Mayo Clinic and annual spending on genetic tests has been steadily increasing, according to a UnitedHealthcare 2012 report.
The largest healthcare players in the industry are convinced were heading in this direction fast, and have been on a buying binge to cement their place in this new genomic order.
In 2007, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche acquired 454 Life Sciences to up its sequencing capabilities and last year, it attempted totakeoverIllumina, which makes the worlds most widely used sequencing machines. In July, Life Technologies bought Navigenics, one of the first personal genomics companies. In September, Illumina bought UK-basedBlueGnome, which specializes in pre-implantation genetic screening for in vitro fertilization, and last month, the sequencing giant paid a ballpark figure of $350 million in cash for Verinata Health, which sells a chromosomaltestthat scans a moms blood for traces of her babys DNA to detect possible birth defects.
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