John West, Solexa Ltd’s chief executive, has assumed the chief executive position of the combined company, which will be headquartered in California. The board of Solexa Inc will include members from both companies’ pre-closing boards and Craig Taylor, previously Lynx Therapeutics’ chairman, will chair the new board.
Solexa Inc, which has already begun trading, is focused on the development and commercialization of a new platform for genetic analysis, based on sequencing-by-synthesis (SBS) and molecular arrays. This one platform is expected to support many types of genetic analysis, including DNA sequencing, gene expression, genotyping and micro-RNA analysis.
This technology can potentially generate over a billion bases of DNA sequence from a single experiment with a single sample preparation. The company anticipates an initial product launch by the end of 2005.
The capability to inexpensively and rapidly sequence the complete DNA of individuals is expected to transform much of genetics research. This comprehensive genetic analysis is expected to reveal both disease susceptibility and pharmaceutical suitability as never before.
It is particularly applicable to the understanding of cancer, as cancer mutations are much more broadly distributed across the genome than others and can occur in any of thousands of genes. The technology is also applicable to other species with potential markets from agriculture to infectious disease.
The company’s long-term goal is to reduce the cost of human re-sequencing to a few thousand dollars. To put this into perspective, this would potentially provide total genetic information on an individual for less than the cost of a CT scan.
The company’s initial strategy, however, is to focus on the well established research market. This market includes DNA sequencing, gene expression and genotyping, all at full genome scale. These together already represent an approximately $1 billion market.