How will Illumina compete with the startup Complete Genomics, which claims to have achieved $4000 genomes, and will offer 20,000 complete human genomes for $5000 each in 2009?
Complete Genomics offers a sequencing service, but does not sell any products. Since Illumina only obtains 10% of its revenue from services [1], it would not likely lose much of its revenue from this added competition. Further mitigating this is the fact that around three-quarters of Illumina's revenue comes from SNP Genotyping [2], which looks like a larger market than sequencing, and is more along Illumina's core competence. Illumina doesn't even lead the market for sequencing, Applied Biosystems does.
If Complete Genomics begins offering low-cost systems for sale, then they will be a bigger threat. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. However, bear in mind that taking a great technology and mass producing it for bench top analysis can be miles apart in development time and cost.
