Illumina and Oxford Nanopore sign commercialization agreement

Under the terms of the commercialization agreement, Illumina will exclusively market, sell, distribute and service Base technology products developed by Oxford Nanopore for DNA sequencing into the research and diagnostic markets on a worldwide basis. Illumina and Oxford Nanopore will share profits generated from sales.

As part of the agreement, Illumina made an equity investment of $18 million, which will be used to accelerate the development of Base technology. Illumina has also agreed to make an additional equity investment upon the achievement of a specific technical milestone.

Oxford Nanopore’s new generation sequencing system uses protein nanopores coupled with a processive enzyme. This system is said to be designed for direct electrical identification of DNA bases at the single-molecule level, without the need for fluorescent labels. Currently in development, this technology has the potential to provide substantial advantages over current sequencing approaches, not only in speed and cost but also in simplicity and versatility of overall workflow, said Oxford Nanopore.

Jay Flatley, president and CEO of Illumina, said: Oxford Nanopore’s technology holds tremendous promise to achieve the sub-$1,000 human genome. Making electrical measurements of unmodified DNA removes the need for complex sample prep and the high-performance optics found in today’s sequencing systems. We look forward to a long and productive partnership with Oxford Nanopore.