Complete Genomics is a DNA sequencing company that launched back in October, and has been creating a buzz in the genomics community ever since.
The company's business model is based around a novel technology for rapidly generating DNA sequence data; but rather than make its money by selling its platform to genomics facilities and biotech companies (as do its competitors, such as Illumina and ABI), Complete will be offering its technology only through its own purpose-built service facilities.
The buzz has focused on whether Complete's technology will be accurate and powerful enough to meet the company's stated goal of offering a $5,000 whole human genome sequence by mid-2009, let alone its far more ambitious long-term goals:
It's been hard to judge how close the company is to making these lofty dreams a reality, because it has kept any data about the performance of its platform a secret.
That will change on Thursday: the company has announced that it will be releasing its sequencing data publicly for the first time at the AGBT meeting this week. I'll be attending, so I'm looking forward to seeing whether the data meet with the high expectations that Complete Genomics has been generating.
