Navigenics to add gene sequencing to its personal genomic services

Recently announced is the project to begin at Scripps in San Diego as related news, coupled with the announcement of the new sequencing service that will be able to offer a complete sequence at a wholesale price may have held a bit of inspiration here for Navigenics to enter the full sequencing market. Navigenics marketing is focused more towards the clinical side of medicine rather than the consumer side. BD

Navigenics has announced in the industry publication In Sequence (subscription only) that it plans to add gene sequencing to its personal genomics service. This would make it the first of the "Big Three" personal genomics companies (Navigenics, 23andMe and deCODEme) to offer analysis of rare as well as common genetic variants. The move into sequencing has always been inevitable for the personal genomics industry. Currently all three of the major players in the affordable personal genomics field (as opposed to Knome's high-end service) use chip-based technology to analyze up to a million common sites of variation, known as SNPs, scattered throughout the genome. SNP chips provide remarkable insight into common variants (that is, variations with a frequency of 5% or greater in the general population), but they don't provide any real information about rarer variants - particularly those with a frequency of less than 1%.

Related Reading:

Scripps, Navigenics, Affymetrix and Microsoft team on groundbreaking health study – Personalized Medicine

Complete Genomic Sequence $5000 Next Year – Wholesale

On the Retail Frontier - DNA - for the Person Who Has Everything

Navigenics Proposes Standards for Personal Genomics Services, Coupled With Prospective Outcomes Studies, to Safeguard Consumers