PacBio has announced their anticipated desktop HiFi sequencer, the Vega sequencing platform, something they’ve been talking about since early 2023. The platform, which is slated to ship in Q1 2025, is part of their strategy to broaden their sequencing portfolio (with a high throughput HiFi sequencer and high throughput “Onso-type” short read sequencer also in the works). They specifically shifted priorities to the LR desktop instrument once it became clear that a number of Revio’s weren’t being used anywhere near maximum capacity. The hope is that a lower cost instrument will introduce more users to their HiFi long reads.
The Vega is essentially a quarter-sized Revio (one SMRT cell vs four) at roughly one fourth the price: $169k. The low capital cost is contrasted with a higher “per sample” cost: $1100 for a 20X human whole genome (vs $500 for the Revio). This follows the established “inverse cost” law that all sequencing platforms seem to follow. The cost (and throughput) of the sequencer has an inverse relationship with the sample cost. In other words, you can have an inexpensive (lower throughput) sequencer or inexpensive samples, but not both. The Vega is pretty low throughput, with the ability to sequence 200 whole genomes per year. This is in contrast to 2,500 for the Revio (which is more than 4x the amount - not quite sure where the disconnect comes from. Edit: the Vega has less compute which results in a smaller output. Perhaps there will be a compute upgrade in the future?)
The good news is that PacBio is delivering on its promise to broaden their product portfolio, giving their customers more ways to access the technology. The low capital cost of the Vega is quite attractive and should entice a number of potential customers. gdub42 over on Nava Whiteford’s excellent ASeq Discord server spelled out their price wishes and this seems to fall right in line with what they were hoping for. The “bad” news is this new low cost platform won’t bring in a lot of revenue ($169k to buy and an implied $200k pull-through if used at capacity). It’s more about winning new customers by making the technology more accessible, and that’s still going to take time to build. In the short term, it may make PacBio more of a direct competitor to Oxford Nanopore (again, thanks to gdub42 for posting their insight into how they plan on potentially using it).
It's nice to see PacBio making improvements and delivering on promises. It will be interesting to see how the field takes to the Vega system and what kind of impact it will have on the slow but steady shift towards long reads.
Other posts: Keith Robison and Nava Whiteford
