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Pacific Biosciences Signs Definitive Agreement to Acquire Omniome
Combination aims to transform the genomics landscape and deliver a differentiated product offering into high growth clinical marketsBrings together Omniome’s
About this update from Pacific Biosciences Of California, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"Combination aims to transform the genomics landscape and deliver a differentiated product offering into high growth clinical marketsBrings together Omniome’s high accuracy short-read sequencing platform, with PacBio’s market leading, high accuracy long-read solutionsTransaction supported by concurrent $300 million PIPE financing from premier life science investors MENLO PARK, Calif. and SAN DIEGO, July 20, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (Nasdaq: PACB) (“Pacific Biosciences” or “PacBio”), a leading provider of high-quality, long-read sequencing platforms, announced today that it has signed a definitive merger agreement under which it will acquire Omniome, a San Diego-based company developing a highly differentiated, proprietary short-read sequencing platform capable of delivering high accuracy. When the merger closes, we believe PacBio will be uniquely positioned as the only company with both highly accurate long-read and short-read sequencing platforms. The integration of these complementary technologies will enable PacBio to dramatically expand its market opportunity for sequencing in novel ways, providing more value to customers across the broadest spectrum of applications. “The acquisition of Omniome is completely aligned with PacBio’s mission of enabling the promise of genomics to better human health. Adding Omniome’s short-read sequencing technology to our long-read portfolio will not only enable us to expand our total market opportunity, but we believe will also further accelerate the adoption of SMRT Sequencing as we expect to reach more customers with a deeper product offering,” said Christian Henry, President and CEO of PacBio. “We chose Omniome because of its novel approach which we believe could result in the most accurate short read sequencing platform to penetrate large, fast growing clinical application areas in oncology, transcriptomics, metagenomics and non-invasive prenatal testing (NIPT).” “The team at Omniome has spent several years developing a new and differentiated sequencing chemistry, Sequencing by Binding (SBB). We developed this chemistry because clinical applications require a level of accuracy that is difficult to achieve with current sequencing technologies. SBB has fundamental advantages over other technologies and the potential to deliver higher sensitivity at a lo...