Pacific Biosciences, Bluebee Team Up for De Novo Sequencing

Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. PACB recently formed an alliance with genomic data-driven medicine company, Bluebee, to develop an advanced de novo assembly pipeline that integrates both the company’s technologies. The combined solution will be introduced at the American Society of Human Genetics’ (ASHG) annual meeting to be held next week in Orlando, FL.

Per the announcement, Menlo Park, CA-based Pacific Biosciences’ de novo assembly pipeline will now be integrated into the Bluebee genomics analysis platform. This integration will offer a simplified workflow and fully automated end-to-end data analysis solution to allow assembly of genome of any size, including the human variety. This will also include a guaranteed turn-around time, enabling better planning and improved productivity.

With growing demand for Single Molecule, Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing in the genomics community, both the companies expect a huge customer adoption of this new cloud-based analysis option. Per Pacific Biosciences, this end-to-end solution integrates downstream data analysis in Bluebee’s high-security and regulatory-compliant computing centers for Pacific Biosciences’ global customers.

Notably, SMRT Sequencing provides a complete and an accurate picture of genomes, courtesy a superior performance of sequencing accuracy, uniformity of coverage, extremely long-read lengths and an ability to characterize DNA base modifications. It is the perfect tool to investigate high sequence genetic complexities, otherwise difficult to resolve using short-read technologies.

Industry Prospects

Significantly, the prospects for long-read sequencing market, where Pacific Biosciences is a leading name, are growing in leaps and bounds. Per a recent report by Decisive Bio-Insights, the Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) manufacturer market size will reach $3.2 billion in 2017 and grow at a 12% per annum rate to touch $4.6 billion by 2020, primarily driven by adoption from worldwide clinical customers. We believe, Pacific Biosciences’ slew of latest developments to be well-timed within this industry.

Price Performance

Over the past three months, the stock has surged more than 40%, comparing favorably with the broader industry’s gain of roughly 3.6%.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

Pacific Biosciences currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A few better-ranked stocks in the medical sector are Abbott ABT, Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. TMO and IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. IDXX. All the three stocks carry a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Abbott has a long-term expected earnings growth rate of 10.7%. The stock has rallied roughly 25.4% over the last six months.

Thermo Fisher has a long-term expected earnings growth rate of 16.3%. The stock has gained 21.4% last year.

IDEXX Laboratories has a long-term expected earnings growth rate of 19.8%. The stock has surged 35.8% last year.

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