NGS services revolutionizing gene sequencing in terms of reproducibility and cost savings

The global next-generation sequencing (NGS) services market size is expected to reach USD 2.87 billion by 2025 at a 13.6 percent CAGR from 2018–2025, predicts Grand View Research. Development of NGS technologies has revolutionized gene sequencing in terms of reproducibility and cost savings. This has resulted in introduction of several advancements in NGS technology to promote its usage in clinical labs and hospitals. Most current innovations in this field revolve around simplifying usage of seq-technology and making it more sophisticated. These factors have driven the uptake of NGS services across various end users. Conventional disease testing service providers have broadened their portfolio with a rising trend of seq-based genetic tests. For example, in October 2014, ARUP Laboratories collaborated with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). The service provision for NGS-based HLA genotyping, including HLA Class II and HLA Class I, began in November 2017.

With rising trend of high throughput sequencing within the pharma and biotech industry, there is a need for more developments to improve the speed and convenience of high throughput seq-platforms and simplify workflows. As a result, companies are focusing on development of solutions to simplify the amplification and purification of sample and starting input. In July 2017, Norgen released the new Small RNA Library Prep Kit for Illumina. This kit is being developed to generate small RNA libraries and is optimized for samples with low input RNA (0.5-1ng), such as urine, serum, plasma, cerebral spinal fluid (CSF), blood, and exosomes.