MGI Announces Commercial Launch of its CoolMPS™ Chemistry-based DNBSEQ™ Sequencers in the United States

SAN JOSE, Calif., Feb. 21, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- MGI, part of global genomics leader BGI Group, today announced the commercial availability of its sequencing instruments and reagent kits in the United States based on MGI's innovative CoolMPS™ sequencing chemistry, starting in April of this year.

MGI is planning to roll out its G series DNBSEQ sequencers first in Q2 and then its T series DNBSEQ sequencers in Q3, and it will take steps to launch its innovative CoolMPS sequencing kits along with its family of library preparation kits to enable whole genome sequencing, whole exome sequencing, RNA sequencing, metagenomics sequencing, single cell sequencing and more. The opening of the US market for these new and long-awaited sequencing instruments will fulfill customer needs and bring performance, quality, availability and affordability to our scientific community. MGI's DNBSEQ sequencers will combine the high accuracy and cost-effective PCR-free core patterned array technology (DNBSEQ™) with its unique DNB library and the higher quality and efficiency of CoolMPS antibody-based chemistry to redefine Massively Parallel Sequencing. A recent publication (bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2019.12.20.885517) demonstrates up to a 55% reduction in WGS indel errors on the PCR-free DNBSEQ platform compared to PCR-cluster-based sequencers and provides a comprehensive overview on how DNBSEQ works.

MGI has continued to drive technology innovation on the DNBSEQ platform, introducing proprietary CoolMPS as the first nucleobase specific antibody-based sequencing chemistry in 2019 and working with partners and collaborators around the world to demonstrate its outstanding performance. Now, with the launch of its sequencer in the US, CoolMPS has been demonstrating its exceptional sequence quality, including single-end 400-base reads (bioRxiv, doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.02.19.953307) and its adaptability in a variety of applications to fulfill MGI's commitment to making sequencing reads cleaner, longer and more accurate. MGI's early access partners will share more information in the upcoming 20^th annual conference of Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) next week.

"We are very excited to bring our unique DNBSEQ-based sequencers and advanced MPS chemistry to this leading genomics market to support broader use of existing and advanced genomics applications," said Dr. Rade Drmanac, Chief Scientific Officer of MGI. "MGI is committed to advancing MPS technology to empower our partners, customers and the industry working toward full understanding of human and other species genomes and cells, and improving our health."

CoolMPS technology is a fundamentally unique antibody-based chemistry that avoids DNA "scars" that can accumulate with traditional sequencing methods and affect the accuracy of subsequent reads. CoolMPS introduces unlabeled nucleotides and four fluorescent labeled antibodies in its sequencing process to recognize the incorporated bases. In this new process, the natural scarless bases are added in each sequencing cycle, enabling more accurate and longer reads. The advantages of CoolMPS include: a stronger signal and higher signal-to-noise ratio, no signal quenching and base scarring, less systematic sequence-based errors, and significantly better cycle-completion performance enabling longer MPS reads. The CoolMPS chemistry is compatible with all commonly used library preparation methods.

Since MGI commercially launched its first sequencer in the middle of 2016, market adoption all over the world has grown dramatically. More than 1,600 MGI sequencers, including DNBSEQ-T7 made available last September, have been installed worldwide, serving more than 460 customers in 38 countries. Over 800 high-level papers have been published with data generated from MGI instruments.

About MGI

MGI Tech Co., Ltd. (MGI), a member of global genomics leader BGI Group, is committed to building core tools and technology to lead life science through intelligent innovation. Based on its proprietary technology, MGI focuses on R&D, production and sales of sequencing instruments, reagents, and related products to support life science research, agriculture, precision medicine and healthcare. MGI is a leading producer of clinical high-throughput gene sequencers, and its multi-omics platforms include genetic sequencing, mass spectrometry, medical imaging and laboratory automation.

SOURCE MGI