Smart Companyの1位になったのは？

MIT'S Technology Review [US] March - April 2014 (単号) (2014/03/14) 不明 商品詳細を見る

イルミナというゲノム解析装置の会社を前回取り上げましたが、この会社はMIT Technology ReviewのSmartest Companiesの50社で、Tesla MotorsやGoogle、Samsungを抑えて堂々1位に選ばれていました。

1 Illumina
2 Tesla Motors
3 Google
4 Samsung
5 Salesforce.com
6 Dropbox
7 BMW
8 Third Rock Ventures
9 Square
10 Amazon

以下がIntroductionであった選出理由ですが、1000ドルでゲノムを解析できる装置を発売したインパクトが大きかったようです。

This is what the editors of MIT Technology Review looked for as we assembled this list. We didn’t count patents or PhDs; instead, we asked whether a company had made strides in the past year that will define its field. The biggest of these strides happened at Illumina, which is driving down the price of DNA sequencing to levels that will change the practice of medicine. We also found dramatic developments on the Web, in batteries, and even in agricultural technologies.

一位に選ばれたこともあり、記事としても取り上げられています。順風満帆に拡大していったというよりも、買収などを経て現在の地位を築いたようです。

Illumina
After outflanking and outlasting competitors, it is on top of the genome-sequencing business—just as that market is about to soar in importance.
By Eilene Zimmerman on February 18, 2014

Illumina already held 70 percent of the market for genome-sequencing machines when it made a landmark announcement in January: using 10 of its latest machines in parallel makes it feasible to read a person’s genome for $1,000, long considered a crucial threshold for moving sequencing into clinical applications. Medical research stands to benefit as well. More researchers will have the ability to do large-scale studies that could lead to more precise understanding of diseases and help usher in truly personalized medicine.

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Solexa took advantage of a novel way of sequencing, known as sequencing by synthesis, that was 100 times faster than other technologies and correspondingly cheaper, says Flatley. But it was a small business, with just $2.5 million in revenue in 2006. After Illumina provided the global distribution Solexa needed, “we built it into a $100 million business in one year,” he says. “It was an inflection point for us. We began this super-rapid growth.”

The deal also turned out to be a turning point for Illumina’s competitors, which quickly fell behind technologically. Roche, which bought 454 Life Sciences in 2007, announced last October that it would shutter the company and phase out its sequencers. Complete Genomics, another competitor, cut jobs and began looking for a buyer in 2012; last year the Chinese company BGI-Shenzhen bought it, although Illumina made a failed bid for it as well.

今後はゲノム情報を一般顧客に得るサービス提供が視野に入っているようです。

The Solexa deal was far from the last time that Flatley transformed Illumina by buying the technology he thought it needed. Another pivotal point came last year, when the company bought Verinata Health, maker of a noninvasive prenatal sequencing test to identify fetal abnormalities. That gave Illumina a service that consumers can buy (through their doctors), in a market that could be worth billions of dollars in revenue.

イルミナ社はCraig Venterの会社にも出資をしており、Venterも将来的にはゲノム情報を販売していきたいと語っていました。どんな発展を示すのでしょうか。