India to be fastest growing market for genomic sequencing technologies, says Illumina

The demand for genomic sequencing in India will grow four- to five-fold over the next five years due to its increasing role in clinical diagnosis, medical and drug research, says Ankur Dhingra, Global CFO of US-based Illumina, a world leader in genomic sequencing tools and solutions.

“Our (Indian) customers are talking about (the requirement of) 1 million samples over the next two years, which used to be 100,000 samples (until recently). And a big factor of that is that we have made the technology easier to use and less costly. If it becomes easy, people will use it everywhere”, he said.

According to Dhingra, more than half of the demand for genome sequencing in India comes from clinical applications, done by the sequencing companies or large hospitals, including the cancer centres. “Another 40% falls in the research area, half of which would be government or research institutes, like the IITs, that do biological research”, he said. In addition, startups doing research on the sequencing, use of genomics for the purpose of broader population health management, etc are all contributing to this growth.

“We're seeing a lot of increased focus on genomic sequencing, especially in the cancer care, as well as in the genetic disease area. I'm here to lay out a path and a partnership (with customers) to meaningfully expand the use of technology here in this country”, Dhingra, who was on a visit to India recently, said.

The new technology platforms Illumina launched about two years ago had reduced the sequencing price by about 67%. A whole human genome can now be sequenced for under $200, which used to be tens of thousands of dollars until about 15 years ago. “We took our prices down to a level where the cost has actually come down so much with sequencing in itself is just 20% of the cost of running the diagnostic”, Dhingra said.

According to Dhingra, Illumina’s India business is set to grow at a faster pace than the rest of the world. “Globally, the use of sequencing has been growing at the rate of about 30% every year, which means it's been doubling every three years. When we think about a 4-5 times utilization growth here (India), that's roughly double the growth of the rest of the world for us”, he said.

In fact, Illumina technologies were widely active during the Covid pandemic. Post-Covid, sequencing technologies are being tried out in the case of other respiratory diseases, viral infections, tuberculosis, sepsis, blood infections, etc.

“Infectious disease is a big area. Screening for hereditary diseases, especially newborn screening, is catching up. Several states in the U.S. are saying that every newborn will be screened for 500 different genetic biomarkers, to say, do you have a risk of a genetic disease later on” Dhingra said.

Last year, Illumina had established a GCC to expand its Indian presence.