Illumina introduces Cancer Analysis Service from IGN

Illumina, Inc. (NASDAQ:ILMN) today announced the launch of a Cancer Analysis Service from the Illumina Genome Network (IGN) that leverages the high accuracy of Illumina technologies to provide cancer researchers with easily interpretable tumor/normal sequencing data to quickly move their research forward. IGN is designed to link researchers needing large-scale, whole human genome sequencing services with leading institutions that provide these services using industry-leading Illumina sequencing platforms powered by TruSeq® technology.

Due to the lowest sample input volume of any commercial whole human genome sequencing service (5 μg), the IGN Cancer Analysis Service enables researchers to add the greatest number of samples to their studies. By better modeling the impurities of real-life tumor extracts, IGN's optimized combined calling analysis method yields the most accurate somatic mutation calls, recovering 97% of known SNVs (versus 77% using subtractive analysis methods), even when tumor purity is low (<40%).

"Researchers can trust the quality of IGN data and confidently take the next step in their research," said Scott Kahn, Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Illumina. "High data accuracy and our unique ability to integrate data from transcriptome or methylome studies will allow researchers to gain a deeper understanding of cancer mechanisms."

In addition to its Cancer Analysis Services, Illumina is working with leading data analysis and visualization companies, including Diagnomics, Ingenuity, and Knome, to provide optimized software tools for downstream filtering and interrogation of IGN datasets, with a goal of delivering biologically relevant and actionable results. The data can also be integrated with the results of follow-on sequencing, genotyping, and RNA-Seq studies performed to help researchers better understand cancer and the biological pathways it impacts.