Illumina Inc. announced it has expanded the world's most comprehensive next-generation sequencing (NGS) portfolio with the launch of the HiSeq X Five System and HiSeq 3000/4000 Systems. Over the last five years, the HiSeq Sequencing System family has been established as the platform of choice for high-throughput, production-scale sequencing laboratories. The new systems bring to market technology innovations and cost reductions that enable high-throughput laboratories to significantly increase their productivity. Additionally, during its presentation at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Illumina introduced the NextSeq 550 System, the first NGS system enabled for array scanning.

The system's initial applications are for cytogenetics and prenatal genetic diagnosis (PGD). The company also unveiled a roadmap for further market expansion in the areas of reproductive health and oncology. The HiSeq X Five, which consists of five individual HiSeq X instruments, allows production centers to adopt high-throughput WGS with a lower capital investment and at an attractive price per genome.

At full utilization, the five instruments provide the throughput to sequence more than 9,000 genomes a year. The HiSeq X Five makes high-throughput human WGS more accessible, enabling production-scale sequencing to be performed in more laboratories. Building on the proven performance of the HiSeq 2500 System and leveraging patterned flow cell technology originally developed for the HiSeq X Ten System, the HiSeq 3000/4000 Systems provide unparalled speed and performance for the full range of high-throughput sequencing applications.