Beijing Genomics Institute or simply the BGI was established in 1999. The company has since come a long way from sequencing deadly 2011 Germany E. coli O104:H4 outbreak in three days to purchasing Complete Genomics of Mountain View, California, a major supplier of DNA sequencing technology, for US$118 million in 2013.
It is among the world’s largest genome sequencing organizations. Also, it was the force behind China’s contribution to the Human Genome Project — sequencing a symbolic, 1% of the genome. It has produced a series of high-profile sequencing breakthroughs, including the genomes of rice, the cucumber, the giant panda, an ancient human and more than 1,000 species of gut bacteria. In 2010 the company purchased 128 of the world’s most-advanced genome-sequencing machines.
Attributable to these achievements and recognition, the firm gained a reputation as a genome factory and became the industry’s most prolific player overnight.
The number of studies based on BGI-sequenced genomes which are by the way paid for by scientists from all over the world actually acknowledge the BGI scientists’ contributions by making them co-authors! Also, this number was witnessed to jump from a handful to hundreds per year.
But now, squeezed by its rivals and owing to the plummeting cost of sequencing, China’s genomics giant BGI
drawn to more-profitable pursuits, such as prenatal genetic testing which has high potential in the Country’s expanding medical market, is capping off a dramatic transformation into a mainly biomedical firm with a focus on reproductive health.BGI’s inability to keep pace in the field is also believed to be affected by its failure to develop an analogous technology based on an advanced sequencer that it bought from Complete Genomics in Mountain View, California.
The firm hopes to up its game using the money raised from its IPO by paying attention to improving its reproductive and cancer-diagnosis technologies, and add other, also similar, sequencing-based diagnostic services for other health conditions.
“We don’t know the level of interest from investors. The industry is still relatively small, but it’s fast growing and has a lot of potential,” says Ruiqiang Li, who used to work for BGI and is now the chief executive of competing genomics firm Beijing-based Novogene, while speaking about the issue.
