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DRAGEN v4.5 supports Illumina's new TruPath Genome and 5-base assays, drives insights across germline, oncology, and multiomic workflows
Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) today announced the launch of DRAGEN™ version 4.5 software (v4.5), one of the most substantial expansions of the software's capabilities to date. As genomic researchers contend with complex regions of the genome, degraded samples, and multiomic data types, DRAGEN v4.5 delivers new ways to reduce noise, improve accuracy, and extract biological signals, giving researchers greater discovery power to fuel findings in rare disease and oncology.
About this update from Illumina, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Illumina launches DRAGEN v4.5, unlocking deep biological signals in complex regions and challenging sample types for rare disease, oncology research ","length":148,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"New pangenome representation, default personalization, and machine learning features boost analytical capabilities across applications ","length":135,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"SAN DIEGO, April 16, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN) today announced the launch of DRAGEN™ version 4.5 software (v4.5), one of the most substantial expansions of the software's capabilities to date. As genomic researchers contend with complex regions of the genome, degraded samples, and multiomic data types, DRAGEN v4.5 delivers new ways to reduce noise, improve accuracy, and extract biological signals, giving researchers greater discovery power to fuel findings in rare disease and oncology.","length":518,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"This release enhances DRAGEN's strong germline foundation with expanded pangenome representation and personalization, further improving variant calling accuracy and performance in challenging genomic regions. v4.5 provides analytical support for Illumina TruPath™ Genome, resolving challenging-to-map regions of the genome.","length":327,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":""These advances expand the scope of biological questions researchers can address across germline, oncology, and multiomic applications—while maintaining the speed, scale, and operational consistency expected from DRAGEN," said Rami Mehio, senior vice president and general manager of BioInsight at Illumina. "BioInsight is all about making bioinformatics accessible, reliable, and scalable, whether you are a researcher seeking insights into rare disease or a pharma partner pursuing drug discovery from datasets."","length":534,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"text","content":"DRAGEN v4.5 key updates","length":23,"tagName":"p"},{"type":"list","items":[{"val":[{"type":"text","content":"Significantly expands multiomic analysis, with structural variant calling and improved small variant accuracy for Illumina's 5-base solution, enabling more integrated genetic and epigenetic insight","length":201,"tagName":"p"}]},{"val":[{"type":"text","content":"Introduces machine-learning-driven somatic analysi...