- Commercial launch of UG 100 Solaris which includes new chemistry, software, and simplified workflows for the UG 100 sequencing platform, now with expanded applications support and integration with leading ‘omics’ technologies
- Over 50% increase in output to 10 to 12 billion reads per wafer and pricing reduced by 20% to $0.24 per million reads, enabling the $80 genome
- Increased sensitivity with 5X yield improvement for the SNVQ60 ppmSeq™ mode enabling 30X coverage from as little as 2 nanograms of DNA (1/5th of the cfDNA found in a standard tube of blood)
- Early access availability of UG 100 Solaris Boost, a new high-throughput operating mode providing up to 100 billion reads per day for select short-read applications
FREMONT, Calif., Feb. 24, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Ultima Genomics, Inc., a developer of an ultra-high-throughput sequencing architecture, today announced the commercial launch of UG 100 Solaris at the Advances in Genome Biology and Technology (AGBT) Conference on February 24, 2025. UG 100 Solaris features new chemistry, software, and simplified workflows to significantly increase output and lower cost on the UG 100 sequencing platform.
“Only one year after commercially launching our UG 100 sequencing platform, we are excited to announce another major leap forward in our product evolution with the launch of UG 100 Solaris, providing even higher throughput, lower cost, and broader support for key applications technologies on our UG 100 sequencing platform,” said Gilad Almogy, founder and CEO of Ultima Genomics. “UG 100 Solaris showcases the scalability of our unique architecture and represents the first step to decreasing the cost of sequencing and increasing the scale of genomics data.”
The workflows now commercially available with the launch of UG 100 Solaris include Solaris Free for PCR-free libraries, and Solaris Flex for amplified and converted libraries. Beyond the increase in output, decrease in cost, and other improvements enabled for the UG 100 Sequencer, UG 100 Solaris also provides the same high-quality data and extreme accuracy with Ultima’s ppmSeq technology-enabling part-per-million accuracy, or SNVQ60, for calling single nucleotide variants (SNVs).
To date, Solaris has been deployed at more than 15 UG 100 customer sites, garnering strong feedback:
“The UG 100 has really transformed the way we approach high-depth projects,” said Kenny Beckman, Director at the University of Minnesota Genomics Center. “At the per read cost of the new Solaris chemistry, we are simply replacing sequence capture with whole-genome sequencing. We have been amazed to see, in our initial projects, that it’s less expensive -- not to mention way simpler -- to sequence the whole human genome at 30X than to carry out a capture of just 1/1000th of it. The resulting data is free of the compromises that we have with sequence capture. For model organism genomes like Drosophila, where our 30X WGS cost is now just a few dollars, we see a path to 30X WGS as an everyday means to characterize variants and genome edits. The possibilities are endless.”
“The new Solaris chemistry has given the Broad Institute a considerable increase in our output on the UG 100 Sequencer and at a cost-point that will enable many applications for the Broad community,” said Stacey Gabriel, Executive Vice President, Platforms and Scientific Execution from the Broad Institute. “We have several large projects that we are running on the sequencers for which lower cost reads and the production-scale automation have been very advantageous.”
“At Regeneron Genetics Center, our genetic analyses are powered by the scale of our data, making our sequencing lab’s throughput crucial to our success,” said John Overton, PhD, Vice President at Regeneron Genetics Center. “We are looking forward to increasing throughput with the UG 100 Sequencer with Solaris, and plan to utilize it with the recently announced UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project to generate the largest and most comprehensive proteomics dataset in the world.”
“We believe the field of biotechnology is rapidly accelerating towards an era in which massive datasets and AI/ML techniques transform how drugs are discovered. The speed, quality, and cost enabled by Ultima’s technology provide a compelling capability for those looking to rapidly generate data at massive scale,” said Johnny Yu, CSO and Co-Founder at Vevo Therapeutics. “With Tahoe-100, we have generated a dataset on 100 million cells at unprecedented speed to create the largest single-cell transcriptomic dataset in the world that now powers our unique drug discovery engine. This is a transformational capability, and we believe this is just the start of what this will enable for the biotechnology community and accelerating drug discovery.”
Launching Early Access of UG 100 Solaris Boost for large-scale short read applications
Today, the company also announced Early Access for UG 100 Solaris Boost. Solaris Boost is a new high-throughput operating mode that enables true population-scale omics and large-scale data generation. By reducing sequencing run times, UG 100 Solaris Boost can further increase the output of the UG 100 sequencing platform to up to 100 billion reads per day for short-read applications. We have begun installing UG 100 Solaris Boost at selected Early Access sites and will provide additional details on full commercial availability in 2025.
“Since the company’s inception, we have advanced our innovative sequencing architecture to enable the generation of genomic data at a scale previously not possible with legacy platforms,” continued Gilad Almogy. “Solaris Boost is an excellent example of the scaling possibility with our flexible sequencing architecture, and this feature will enable data-hungry applications.”
Ultima Media Contact
Vikki Herrera
408-206-7009
vikki@oakstreetcommunications.com
About Ultima Genomics
Ultima Genomics is unleashing the power of genomics at scale. The Company’s mission is to continuously drive the scale of genomic information to enable unprecedented advances in biology and improvements in human health. With humanity on the cusp of a biological revolution, there is a virtually endless need for more genomic information to address biology’s complexity and dynamic change—and a further need to challenge conventional next-generation sequencing technologies. Ultima’s revolutionary new sequencing architecture drives down the costs of sequencing to help overcome the tradeoffs that scientists and clinicians are forced to make between the breadth, depth and frequency with which they use genomic information. The new sequencing architecture was designed to scale far beyond conventional sequencing technologies, lower the cost of genomic information and catalyze the next phase of genomics in the 21st century. To learn more, visit www.ultimagenomics.com
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