NGS Manufacturers Market - Director of Biomarkers, Global Pharmaceutical CRO

A director of biomarkers at a global pharmaceutical CRO utilizes NGS in clinical trials, primarily related to the cell and gene therapy space and infectious disease. They utilize Illumina, ThermoFisher, and Oxford Nanopore instruments internally and have outsourced to PacBio services for a client. They are also familiar with MGI / Complete Genomics, Element, and Ultima. They discuss how the lift of bringing on a new instrument from a new vendor is significantly larger at a CRO than it may be at other institution types, given all of the validation requirements and the need to submit data to the FDA. While it is a huge lift, they do think there is potential for new players to start taking more market share overtime, starting with academic centers and then eventually moving to commercialized labs. When considering purchasing new instruments, they prioritize cost, reproducibility, and customer service to ensure results are accurate and timely. When evaluating new instruments, they rely heavily on academic datasets and will download the data and re-analyze themselves.

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