DeciBio conducted 10 interviews with KOLs at academic medical centers, pharmaceutical companies, reference labs, and CROs to better understand their perception of established and upcoming NGS instrument vendors, as well as key pain points and predictions for NGS. Experts elaborated on what they evaluate when purchasing NGS instruments, and what it takes (or would take) for them to switch vendors. Much of the discussion focused on understanding the perceived strengths / weaknesses of NGS instrument vendors, collecting feedback on where these companies differentiate from the competition, and defining the scenarios where each may be successful vs not. Ad board participants elaborated on how their sequencing budgets are segmented today and predicted key market changes in light of decreasing NGS costs.

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This report is organized around the key responses to 11 key study questions

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• What is your level of familiarity with established and emerging NGS instrument companies?
• How impressed are you with these vendors’ NGS offerings?
• What is you perception of each of the NGS platform manufacturers?
• If you are considering adopting new instruments, why? What drives the need for new sequencing platforms?
• Could competing short-read platforms drive the switch from Illumina’s ecosystem given the switching costs involved?
• What type of track record would you want to see from new players / sequencers before you consider adoption?
• What are the most important attributes you consider when purchasing a new NGS instrument
• What are the key pain points associated with NGS today?
• Can you tell us about your current bioinformatics infrastructure and unmet needs?
• What is the overall cost of ownership for your sequencing infrastructure?
• As more competitive offerings enter the market, what do you predict will be the effect of recent cost reductions in WGS?

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Vendors Discussed

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• Element 
• Illumina
• MGI / Complete Genomics
• Oxford Nanopore
• PacBio
• Singular
• ThermoFisher
• Ultima

This advisory board is meant to be a qualitative, limited scope study, and the intent is to highlight the unbiased and unfiltered feedback just from the stakeholders interviewed, not provide a comprehensive market assessment. DeciBio also has a suite of comprehensive market reports (Link Here) if broader industry level insights are of interest. 

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