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Roche is shuttering its 454 Life Sciences sequencing operations and layingoff about 100 employees, the company confirmed today.

The 454 sequencers will be phased out in mid-2016, and the 454 facility inBranford, Conn., will be closed "accordingly," Roche said in astatement e-mailed to GenomeWeb Daily News.

The 100 layoffs will take place during the next three years, and,"Roche is committed to finding socially responsible solutions for theemployees affected by these changes," it added.

Until the business is shut down, Roche will provide service and support to454 instruments, parts, reagents, and consumables.

"Sequencing is a fast-evolving technology," the firm said."With the continuous efforts of the sequencing unit in building a diversepipeline of potentially differentiated sequencing technologies, Roche iscommitted to introducing differentiated and competitive products to the marketand offer[ing] a sequencing product pipeline for both life science and clinicalapplications."

Roche <ahref="http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/roche-acquire-454-155m-plans-use-sequencer-ivd-applications">bought454 from Curagen in 2007 for $155 million in cash and stock, saying at thetime the deal would solidify its access to future 454 sequencers and enable itto use the tools for in vitro diagnostic applications. Prior to thepurchase, Roche had been 454's exclusive distributor starting in 2005.

Roche does not break out revenue figures for the 454 business, but in recentyears, with the ascent of other sequencing technologies, the 454 instrumentswere pushed to the research margins. More recently, lower-throughput sequencerssuch as Illumina's MiSeq and Life Technologies' Ion Torrent systems havefurther moved the 454 technology toward irrelevance.

Over the past few years, Roche has made efforts to stay involved with thenext wave of sequencing technologies in development. It forged alliances with <ahref="http://www.genomeweb.com/dxpgx/roche-ibm-co-developing-nanopore-based-dna-sequencing-technology">IBMand <ahref="http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/roche-dna-electronics-partner-semiconductor-based-sequencing">DNAElectronics in 2010, and in early 2012 it made a <ahref="http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/roche-announces-57-billion-hostile-takeover-bid-illumina">hostilebid for Illumina that eventually reached a price tag of $6.7 billion — abid that was rejected by Illumina.

After being rebuffed by Illumina, Roche continued trying to resuscitate itssequencing operations, and in December 2012, <ahref="http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/illumina-stock-gains-amid-report-new-bid-roche">reportssurfaced that Roche was again courting Illumina, though no dealmaterialized.

Then, earlier this year, Roche announced it had ended its deals with IBM andDNA Electronics, and said simultaneously it would <ahref="http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/roche-shut-down-applied-sciences-business-area-cut-jobs-germany-and-connecticut">shutdown its R&D efforts in semiconductor sequencing and nanoporesequencing, resulting in about 60 layoffs at the Branford site.

The company said at the time that it was <ahref="http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/roche-shut-down-applied-sciences-business-area-cut-jobs-germany-and-connecticut"target="_blank">consolidating its 454 and NimbleGen products into a newsequencing unit covering both life science and clinical diagnosticapplications. Dan Zabrowski, head of Roche Applied Science, who was to head thenew sequencing unit, told In Sequence then, "We are fullycommitted to [our] life science business, and this decision did not have animpact on any of our businesses or customers. We continue to think thatsequencing is going to play an important role in life science and in theclinic."

Roche is not abandoning the sequencing space entirely, though. Last monththe firm <ahref="http://www.genomeweb.com/sequencing/roche-pacbio-develop-ngs-based-clinical-dx-potential-75m-deal">forgeda deal for up to $75 million with Pacific Biosciences to develop diagnosticproducts based on PacBio's SMRT technology.

"Roche sees great potential in this sequencing technology which offersunprecedented read length, accuracy, and speed for the development of futuresequencing based applications in clinical diagnostics," Roche said.

Лет десять назад они были пионерами с принципиально-новой технологией, с тех пор побывали в лидерах, а сейчас вот уже закрываются не выдержав конкуренции. Как все быстро происходит.