It was in 2004 that Pacific Biosciences got founded as biotechnology company that focuses on the development and manufacturing of systems used for gene sequencing and other novel real time biological observation. The main office of the company is in Menlo Park, California. They also trade under the ticker symbol PACB on the NASDAQ.
Based on the zero-mode waveguides Pacific Biosciences describes their platform as a single molecule real time sequencing (SMRT). The PacBio RS, was their first commercial product that was just released to a select customers in 2010. The following year, they released this product commercially and later on came up with a new version which they named as the PacBio RS II. The latter was released last April 2013.
The founding of the business was made under the name Nanofluidics, Inc. It was created based on the research done at the Cornell University. That research aimed to incorporate semiconductor processing and photonics in biotechnology research. During its early years, the business was branded as the most capitalized startups in 2010. Among its key investors were Caufield & Byers, Alloy Ventures, Wellcome Trust, Perkins, Mohr Davidow Ventures and Kleiner. It raised approximately $400 million during their six rounds of primarily venture capital financing.
The scientific instruments that Pacific Biosciences are said to be capable of detecting methylation of DNA strands without altering the DNA. This was published in their article in 2010 entitled Nature Methods. With the use of their machine, scientists were able to generate full bacterial methylomes in 2012. This was done using the SMRT sequencing.
As part of the success of the company, they have earned a partnership with Roche Diagnostics which was finalized on September 25, 2013. Part of this deal is for them to develop in vitro diagnostic products using their technology. The partnership cost Roche $75 million.
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