The CEO of the world’s leading DNA sequencing company says he knows how to finally get consumers interested in their genomes: by creating an enormous app store for genetic information.
Yesterday, Illumina said that along with Warburg Pincus and Sutter Hill Ventures it was investing $100 million in a new company called Helix to make consumer genomics part of the Internet mainstream.
Illumina’s CEO, Jay Flatley, said in an interview that Helix will subsidize the cost of decoding people’s genomes in hopes of spurring the creation of consumer apps that will draw on the DNA data repeatedly. “You saw what happened with the Apple app store: it just unleashed the consumer side because apps are so cheap to make,” says Flatley, who will be chairman of the new company.
Flatley says that when Helix goes live next year it will sequence and store consumers’ DNA, then sell them pay-as-you-go access to it through the apps, which will be offered by partners, the first of which are LabCorp and the Mayo Clinic. Profits will get shared, in a model similar to the one for Apple’s app store. If Helix succeeds, it will operate the largest sequencing laboratory of any kind, Flatley predicts.
Everyone is trying to unlock the value of the genome, most of all Illumina (see “50 Smartest Companies 2014”). The San Diego-based company, whose sleek-looking sequencing machines are also said to be inspired by Apple’s designs, is the big winner so far. It dominates the market and last year sold $1.8 billion of DNA sequencing machines, chemicals, and tests. The more sequencing happens, the better for Illumina.
Right now, genome sequencing is done by research laboratories, at hospitals, and even by a few national programs. The formation of Helix is about the last big uncracked market: you and me.
So far, interest by consumers in genomics has been fairly tepid. Who do you know whose genome has been sequenced? The problem is that for healthy people, the genome just isn’t that important. What does it mean? What is it good for? Even though sequencing a genome has become much cheaper, just a couple of thousand dollars, to most people, finding out isn’t worth the cost. Even Flatley, whose genome is sequenced and posted to the Internet, has called the experience ho-hum.
So how do you get consumers to participate? The idea behind Helix is to make it pay-as-you-go.
Here’s how it might work. Say you download an app from a Helix partner to find out if you have a specific genetic variant, for example the “speed gene,” known to be possessed by many athletes (nicely described here by 23andMe). And imagine that app costs $20. You send in a spit sample; Helix will return just that information to you through the app.
But Helix will sequence much more of your genome, says Flatley. He says Helix will do “an exome plus”—that is, decode all your genes and a few more key spots, but not parts of the genome without clear medical relevance. That will cost Helix perhaps $500. But then, if you order a new app that draws on your genes, Helix will already have your DNA information, ready to be quickly served up…
Source: MIT Technology Review