Menlo Park, California, USA
February 23, 2010

Pacific Biosciences, a private company developing a disruptive technology platform for real-time detection of biological events at single molecule resolution, today announced the 10 institutions that have purchased its Single Molecule Real Time (SMRT™) DNA sequencing system as part of the company’s early access program in North America.

The North American early access customers are: Baylor College of Medicine, the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, The Genome Center at Washington University, Monsanto Company, the National Cancer Institute/SAIC-Frederick, the National Center for Genome Resources, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and Stanford University.

“We are delighted that our initial early access program is already sold-out, and that we have a range of customer types including genome centers, cancer research institutions, commercial organizations, and universities interested in applying our SMRT technology to a broad range of applications,” said Hugh Martin, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Pacific Biosciences. “The wide array of applications that will be explored by our initial customers will benefit from the key advantages of the SMRT system: long reads, fast cycle times, flexibility, and single-molecule resolution. This is what defines third-generation DNA sequencing.”

The first shipments to members of the early access program will begin in the first half of 2010. Pacific Biosciences is also planning early access programs for Europe and Asia later this year.

“We see this as a potentially valuable tool that can be applied to a wide range of studies because of its versatility,” said Michael Snyder, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Genetics and Director, Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine. “We look forward to being part of the pioneering group of early adopters using this new generation of DNA sequencing technology.”

Pacific Biosciences will use the 10-site early access program as a systematic way to garner feedback on the SMRT system and to ensure that it is fully prepared to scale its operations to meet expected demand at commercial launch in the second half of 2010.

“We are excited to have the opportunity to be one of the first institutions to access this technology with the potential to revolutionize personalized medicine,” said John McPherson, Ph.D., Director of Cancer Genomics, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. “We plan to first explore the benefits of its long readlengths for targeted human sequencing and viral sequencing.”

The company also recently announced its third-party program to provide complimentary solutions for the SMRT system, including sample prep consumables and informatics tools. More information about the program is available at www.pacificbiosciences.com/community.

Pacific Biosciences will formally unveil the SMRT system later this week during its commercial workshop at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) conference in Marco Island, FL. Scientists from Pacific Biosciences and its collaborators will present data generated using the SMRT system for a variety of applications, including DNA sequencing, direct RNA sequencing, methylation sequencing, and protein translation. More information is available at www.agbt.org and www.pacificbiosciences.com.

Pacific Biosciences’ mission is to transform the way humankind acquires, processes, and interprets data from living systems. The company has developed a disruptive technology platform for the real-time detection of biological events at single molecule resolution. Single Molecule Real Time (SMRT™) Biology promises to revolutionize the life sciences by revealing the underlying networks that define living systems. The first application for the SMRT Biology platform is a paradigm changing approach to DNA sequencing. The SMRT Sequencing System will ultimately make it possible to sequence individual genomes as part of routine medical care. DNA sequencing is expected to be the first of many transformative SMRT Biology applications that will benefit society by driving radical advances in fields such as personalized medicine, agriculture, clean energy, and global health.

Website: http://www.pacb.com/

Published: February 24, 2010