[steinmann]

Interesting article in Forbes with comment from Craig Venter on this.

Seems like Craig Venter does not belive in the future of Illumina.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewh...ing-land-grab/

[ECO]

Interesting article in Forbes with comment from Craig Venter on this.

Seems like Craig Venter does not belive in the future of Illumina.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewh...ing-land-grab/

Heh @ CV....he "doesn't understand" why Roche would do this? Maybe the future growth of ILMN won't be as explosive as it has been through the array market and through Solexa. But Roche doesn't care about the research market. They want the head start into real HTP clinical sequencing...and ILMN has the only technology that can go there IMHO.

*disclaimer: I'm long on ILMN.

[GW_OK]

Interesting article in Forbes with comment from Craig Venter on this.

Seems like Craig Venter does not belive in the future of Illumina.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/matthewh...ing-land-grab/

Has Illumina offended you personally in some way or are you just that much of an Ion fanboy? Maybe you're just out trolling....

The sequencing technology is moving so fast the Illumina technology may become quickly outmoded, said Craig Venter,

Replace Illumina in that sentence with 454, or SOLiD, PacBio, or even your precious Ion Torrent.

Once somebody can kick off a 3rd gen machine that can live up to the hype we can look back at all the current tech and laugh.

So how do you think it could have been done? Seems impossible to me without fundamentally changing the technology. How could you possibly increase throughput 10 or 100x without resorting to something like Rothberg ended up doing?

Roche could have kept Rothberg and/or optioned the new ion tech when it was developed seeing as how the Ion Torrent is the obvious next evolution of the 454.

[baguaboy]

What are the views here on Helicos.. everyone seems to be wrting them off, but they do have the ongoing litigation against Ilumina and have a history of collaboration with Roche...plus lots of things still bubbling away...like their work at Riken, patrice Milos's involvement now at the new Pfizer Centre, the links with Foundation Medicine etc....interestingly, Roche mentioned on yesterdays conference call that they were interested in Single Molecule Sequencing going forward ..and dodged the question about ongoing IP litigation against Ilumina....could it be that either if the acqusition of Ilumina goes ahead or not Roche will buy out Helicos to get accesss to their tSMS IP and the active litigation against Life and Pacbio (and Ilumina ..if they remain independent)?

[Elcannibal]

For sure Helicos, market cap of about 11 milions and current stock of...14 cents. I'm sure Helicos is just hanging up on all offers...

[krobison]

What are the views here on Helicos.. everyone seems to be wrting them off, but they do have the ongoing litigation against Ilumina and have a history of collaboration with Roche...plus lots of things still bubbling away...like their work at Riken, patrice Milos's involvement now at the new Pfizer Centre, the links with Foundation Medicine etc....interestingly, Roche mentioned on yesterdays conference call that they were interested in Single Molecule Sequencing going forward ..and dodged the question about ongoing IP litigation against Ilumina....could it be that either if the acqusition of Ilumina goes ahead or not Roche will buy out Helicos to get accesss to their tSMS IP and the active litigation against Life and Pacbio (and Ilumina ..if they remain independent)?

Helicos is an expensive machine, very low quality & short read lengths. The key advantages were low cost per sample and easy sample prep. Other than being very close geographically and some staff who have Helicos on their resume, I'm unaware of any real links to Foundation. Avoiding commenting on litigation is a routine event.

Only in the somewhat long shot that Helicos wins big in the courts are they worth much --and with appeals that possible victory is a long ways off. Nanopores are where the attention is at for cheap runs & I doubt Helicos has any strong future.

[GRT]

Roche will acquire Illumina; not a question of "if?", but "for how much?". The real losers will be 454 users, but they were losers already, I suppose. And then maybe Illumina users will suffer too, depending on what Roche decide to do with their new toy. Great news for Ion Torrent.

[Elcannibal]

Ion Torrent does not operate in a vaccum, it is only a small part of a very big company also and it is being pulled on all angles, just trying to make up for all the "other"gang's fall out (solid) is not necessaraly helping on critical work... Things are more complex than you think. Life Tech has to jugle with massive usage drops and severe cut backs to meet market's expectation. This isn't a ball game with two teams...

[GRT]

Right now, in terms of diagnostic lab penetration (i.e. where the market is going), there are just two teams, or three if you include Roche Junior. But isn't he soon to be abandoned, poor Junior? Diagnostic labs might be better off outsourcing, at least until the dust settles.

[Elcannibal]

Junior had double digit growth in the last quarter in that very segment. Seeing Ion Torrent outside the politics of Lufe Technologies would be a very naive thing. LT needs to milk it about as much as Roche needs to milk ILMN. Seeing LT's record in diag, you it will be challenging.

[twaddlac]

I can't wait for Roche to drive it into the ground like the did 454. The 454 customer service from what I've seen and heard is just terrible now. Oh, corporate America...

[JamesH]

Roche claims there are other options if the illumina bid fails, article at genomenweb:

http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/...ina-deal-fails

chairman says:

"Illumina is not the only gene sequencing company, and there are other companies making quantum leaps in this field"

Wonder who that could be????

[nicolallias]

What's now ? My last update on this situation is this link

[Olaf Blue]

Roche let its offer expire after losing big at the Illumina shareholder meeting. They obtained no board seats and the vote was an overall victory for Illumina's bid to stay independent.

http://us.rd.yahoo.com/finance/external/reuters/SIG=12jtvba7h/*http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/22/us-illumina-roche-idUSBRE83L03V20120422?feedType=RSS&feedName=innovationNews&rpc=43

[baguaboy]

and having rejected Roche's $51 bid..Goldman Sachs (who were advising Illumina and were rumoured to have a conflict of interest by having a short position in the stock....this is subject to a class lawsuit by Illumina shareholders) then issued a $48 12 month price target... now the stock is $43. The word "muppets" comes to mind