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N E W SRoche breaks with PacBio,
opts for Genia
2017 Nature America, Inc., part of Springer Nature. All rights reserved.
Roche will continue to pursue the clinical sequencing market despite scrapping a three-year-old development deal with Pacific Biosciences of Menlo Park, California in December. Neil Gunn, head of Roches Sequencing Solutions unit, said in an announcement that the company will actively pursue multiple technologies and commercial strategies to achieve its long-held goal of market leadership in clinical diagnostics. Pacific Biosciences single-molecule, real-time technology will no longer be part of the equation, however. Instead, the Basel-based pharma will focus development efforts onthe nanopore technology it gained throughits $350 million acquisition of Santa Clara, Californiabased Genia Technologies in 2014. Roche is also preparing to launch cancer screening assays to detect circulating tumor DNA. Roche obtained the assays when it bought CAPP Medical, a privately held genomics company founded by Stanford University oncologists last year. In the deal with Pacific Biosciences, Roche had envisioned deploying assays on the biotechs Sequel sequencing instrument. With the deal wound up, Rocheis now free to focus its energies elsewhere, while Pacific Biosciences is no longer heldto its exclusive relationship with Roche andcan court other partners. Pacific Biosciences CEO Michael Hunkapiller said in a statement that he was disappointed with Roches decision, but that the company is preparedto immediately pursue opportunities in the clinical research and sequencing market, with a focus on clients that offer laboratory-developed tests. Roche has long coveted a leadershiprole in the clinical sequencing market and has been particularly acquisitive in the past two years, snatching up Signature Diagnostics, a German translational oncology and genomics company, and Bina Technologies, a genomics analysis provider in Belmont, California, in addition to CAPP Medical and Genia. Roche also acquired Ariosa Diagnostics, a provider of sequencing-based noninvasive prenatal testing located in San Jose, California, in 2014....