in a 700k box that weighs two tons and takes up 60 sq ft of space?

Short run times (<1 hour) and long read lengths (>1kb) definitely have a place in the market.

For some grins and giggles, check out the Ebiosciences thread! LMAO. LOL.

Happy Thanksgiving yanks.

When you show 15% error rates or have a 3Mb sequencer at reasonable error rates what can the competition do that PB has not done already?

Yeah, that makes sense.
What make more sense, suppress gooddata or suppress bad data?

PacBio is the real deal. It is easy for the competition to take shots at them and raise the seed of doubt. My understanding is their current clients have some type of gag clause in their agreements...something about loose lips sink ships. Doesn't matter...some have spoken on the QT and Lifetech and Illumina need to be worried.

Has anyone with one of these boxes actually generated any data yet? Test site users have been very quiet. Not the usual response if things are going well.

This looks like a ponzi scheme.

Anyone seen their revenue forecast for this q?
More important- has anyone seen any data?

Now that you mention it, there seems to be a pattern here. Affymetrix losers sank Helicos and a different corps of them are now very near to capsizing Pacbio. Guess what other nextgen type sequencing company is topheavy with Affy losers and is already weighing on its new parent like a battle ship anchor on a Chris Craft.

Would anyone that actually has access to one of these systems care to weigh in? Are they being used? How do real world results compare to company claims? Is it all hype or is the technology for real?

PacBio is the joke of the ASHG meeting! No instrument to show, a booth that resembles a toilet bowl, and a bunch of washed-up Affymetrix losers trying to pitch a sub-par platform. Note to the wise, buy a used 3730xl; similar throughput and better accuracy. When will people get it - oh, wait, they have.....stock is down 25% since the IPO!

Seems like Affy is piling on with Helicos.

They have a new website, but still no clear statement of their specs.

pacbio is hemorrhaging to stay afloat. when can we expect results from this crusty wart of a company.

Annual burn >200M. no revenue. no product. vaporware.

$200M already

'"But why the manufacturing delay? Are the cells hard to manufacture
Yes-and the instrument too.

or is the company intentionally delaying shipment of sub-par units until after the IPO?"

This has to be the case. These guys are heading for an investor lawsuit after their stock dumps.

Pacbio Rs (695k) will generate about 40,000 reads of about 1kb per read in about 3 hours. Cost unknown.
454 junior (100k) will generate about 100,000 reads of about 500b per read in about 8 hours. Cost about $1200.
Illumina Hiseq (600k) will generate about 4,000,000,000 reads of about 100 b per read in 3 days. Cost about $10k

Pacbio need 10,000 runs to equal one hiseq run ( which is enough for a 30x human genome). Even at one run per hour, that would take 1 year per genome rather than 3 days...

Pacbio RS is no better than a Roche junior. But it will cost 600k more, and not work as well.

pac bio will never leave the starting gate.

Also, the base system. PacBio RS will be $695,000 in the United States, only $5,000 more than Illuminas Hi-seq 2000, with higher read throughs, same accuracy, and detcetion of methylation (claimed I have not confirmed). What am I missing here? Why are people negative? I beg a devils advocate.

Just made the comment below. From what I understand the reagent costs and elimination of PCR and need to wash are what really differentiate this technology. But why the manufacturing delay? Are the cells hard to manufacture or is the company intentionally delaying shipment of sub-par units until after the IPO? Why would Gen-Probe, a very smart company, essentially value the company at 1 billio? Keep in mind, gen-probe made its mark by eliminating PCR in blood banking-bias here?

what do you mean not better? have we seen results from the Broad institute and other places they have been shipped? how much in reagent and SMRT cell costs does it take to sequence a full genome with their system? From presentations the base accuracy seems comparable to Illumina's? What eperates their technology from Helicos-why more accurate and cheaper-elimination of the need to wash?

These are the questions I have.

Wow. If you read the hype these guys are claiming they will break the 1000 dollar genome, but you are saying they are no better than the cheapest "personal" ngs sequencers on the market. Looks like they would be a great short after they go public ( unless they use their cash to buy something that actually works.)

It's even more amazing how many don't understand what you can do with 100 base reads. Wake up dude.

It's amazing how few people really understand what you can't do with 100bp reads....no matter how many of them you have.

454Jr/IonTor argument is a decent one, other than you've still got to do ePCR like crazy to keep the things fed.

Rumor is that average read length is not going to be near 1kb as claimed-more like 500 bp.
Also -only 50k reads per run, run time of 90min.

Compare to a 454 junior. $100k list price (run time 8 hrs, av read length 600, 100k reads) rather than an illumina hiseq ($650k list price)(6 billion reads, 100bp reads, run time 4 days)

Pacbio are a joke.

Why have so many people left the last two years?

Long live Katie P. Down with whomever canned her!

Skipped bases becomes statistically irrelevant if the errors are stochastic (random). If you're not doing whole genomes you could either do your work on illumina's hiseq that takes at least 3 days to run, or do it on pacbio in 30 minutes. Seems pretty simple. If you're doing whole genomes, then get a Hiseq but that's a minority of the market. Heck just have complete genomics do it and save 500k

Plus you get a lot more from pacbio than just base calls. For us nerds just calling bases shouldnt be something you pay a lot for

Great exit strat for the VCs and founders, sucks for anyone who puts money in after they go public.

How many machines are they selling? Do they even have a chance against Illumnia, which essentially owns the market right now?

anybody to comment on its IPO plan?

It's 500K a machine right? So, just sell 600 of those... LOL There are plenty of ppl with extra $500K of spare change lying around, hell, there are more than 600 billionaires in the world, right?

How many machines will you have to sell to pay back those >$300M invest?

The long reads advantage is killed by the error rate due to skipped bases.

SMRT(TM) Technology SMRT™ Technology >> We Rule!
! !

Pacbio is going to sell: long reads = less coverage of a genome required: you don't need the same throughput as short read platforms to get the same quality. If you really want to do complete genomes you need long reads - no genome today is "complete". The rate limiting step here is photodamage, but this is an engineering-resolvable issue, not a fundamental one.

PacBio seems to be using photoresistant reagents for v1, but also has figured out how to immobilize templates to allow for replacing of polymerase. Check out http://www.google.com/patents?id=3-jNAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4&s..., which seems similar to LIFE's SMS.

All Illumina is doing is increasing the flow cell sizes and numbers and changing the camera system with their latest generation. Again, engineering: a step change but not a trajectory change.

Genprobe just dumped $50 mil into Pacbio. I'm wondering how many people are going to get taken for a ride here.

Apparently, a ton of people just hear the hype, the latest is that I hear Pac Bio has orders for up to 100 units. That is the dumbest thing I've heard heard.

Anyway, anyone think they actually have a chance of IPO this year or next?

Pacific Biosystems has sold some, but do they make too many errors as many have said? Illumina says that their process costs $10,000/person in reagents, they double that retail. Pacific Biotechnology said they would be able to do it for $1,000 now and $100 in two years. I doubt it.

Above I read that PAC-Bio's machine does only a fragment of the DNA, and makes only a few thousand calculations. Illumina's system does 2 Billion calculations per person.

From what I'm hearing people say here and elsewhere, the PACBIO system may help, but it won't label the genome.

Apparently, Pacific Biosystems has sold several to universities as "early adoptors": 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

Thanks but that was obvious.

As usual for anyone who has any experience in this field, pump and dump is par for course.

PacBio has done an expert job at it though.

The previous post said: "PAC BIO RULES!!!!!!!!! AND WHAT COMPANY IS THIS SANGER SEQUENCING ANYWAY? NEVER HEARD OF THEM....ANYWAY, PAC BIO RULES!! PAC BIO RULES!!"

This is a very typical PacBio hyper, with lots of exclamation marks, all capital letters, and yet no convincing details. LOL.

PAC BIO RULES!!!!!!!!! AND WHAT COMPANY IS THIS SANGER SEQUENCING ANYWAY? NEVER HEARD OF THEM....ANYWAY, PAC BIO RULES!! PAC BIO RULES!!

Hype versus reality.

The 1,800-pound machine, about the size of an airport X-ray machine with a dishwasher-sized blade server by its side.

Even with future upgrades, Martin says the current machine will not be the one that delivers the '15-minute genome,' as PacBio founder Stephen Turner claimed two years ago. Although the number of ZMWs on a SMRT cell will be doubled to 160,000 ZMW over time, PacBio will need 1 million to get the genome. "It's probably [capable of delivering] a 2- or 3-hour genome." The V2 instrument will reach the 15-minute target, but that isn't scheduled for release now until 2014.

Martin did not preview trace data or discuss error rates in the machine preview. However, at full release later this year, he said the average read length will be 1000-1250 bases, fractionally longer than 454 or Sanger sequencing, with 5% reads between 3-5 kb. For a targeted sequencing experiment, "you'll get 5% of 30% [the Poisson limit] of 80,000 [ZMWs]--so you get 1,000 reads in the 3-5 kb range for $99." Despite the lower throughput compared to the high-end second-generation machines, Martin pointed to an advantage in flexibility, for example allowing diagnostic samples to be run without having to wait until sufficient samples make it worthwhile for a run on a 2nd-gen box.

Overall, I can't help but be underwhelmed by everything I've seen from PacBio so far, especially compared to the dramatically over-hyped claims (15 minute genome, anyone?) the company has become notorious for over the last couple of years.

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/editors/24863/

pac bio rules!!!! pac bio rules!!!! pac bio rules!!!! pac bio rules!!!!

Looks like Pac Bio bombed at AGBT

http://scienceblogs.com/geneticfuture/

The high deletion error rate apparently kills throughput.

Really? I was allways told the commercial release date was the second half of 2010. First then you guys, right, Life rep?

By the way, some more info.

PacBio Names First 10 Customers for $695,000 Single-Molecule Sequencer; First Shipments Slated for Q2
February 23, 2010

The first 10 early-access customers are Baylor College of Medicine, the Broad Institute, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute, the Genome Center at Washington University, Monsanto, the National Cancer Institute/SAIC-Frederick, the National Center for Genome Resources, the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, and Stanford University.

Thanks for confirming they will miss their commercial release date.

For your info:

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb News) – Pacific Biosciences today announced the 10 institutions that have purchased its Single Molecule Real Time DNA sequencing system as part of its early access program in North America.
The early access customers are Baylor College of Medicine; the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; the US Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute; The Genome Center at Washington University; Monsanto; the National Cancer Institute/SAIC-Frederick; the National Center for Genome Resources; the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research; and Stanford University.
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based firm said that the first shipments to early-access customers will take place during the first half of this year. It intends to use the 10-site, early-access program to gain feedback on the SMRT system and to ensure that the firm is fully prepared to scale its operations to meet expected demand at commercial launch of the system in the second half of this year.
"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," Pacific Biosciences Chairman and CEO Hugh Martin said in a statement. "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."
The firm said that it also plans early-access programs for Europe and Asia later this year.

surprise surprise eh?
i still doubt the longevity of this technology. It's more like 1.5gen than 3rd gen.

If pacbio does not have beta boxes in genome centers already, there is no way they will meet their Fall '10 release date.

pac bio rules!