I’ve talked about the personal genomics company Knome here at TGG a number of times. The company is one of the few, if not only, entity offering customers the opportunity to receive their entire genomic sequence. After paying for sequencing, customers receive their genetic sequence on an 8-gigabyte USB drive in an engraved silver box. The USB is encrypted and contains special genome browsing software (KnomeXplorer).
The Cost of Sequencing Crashes
According to an article at MSN Money entitled “$99,000 to see your future?,†Knome recently lowered the price of sequencing from $350,000 to $99,000. This isn’t very surprising considering how quickly the cost of sequencing is dropping.
From the article:
“Just to give you some context, the U.S. government finished sequencing the first genome in 2003, and it took 13 years and about $3 billion,” says Jorge Conde, the 31-year-old CEO of Knome. “We’re now at the point that we can do it for $99,000 in three months. Our goal is to eventually be able to offer this to a large segment of the population for around $1,000.” (Just a year ago, Knome was asking $350,000 for its services.)
