Illumina announced in January at the JP Morgan Healthcare conference the NextSeq 500, which was trumpeted (at least at the level of press releases and public relations) of being available immediately. Knowing first-hand how difficult it is to launch a new system, I had expected the first systems to ship by the end of the first quarter (March), but here we are in mid-June and the first data is only now being reported on the NextSeq 500 system.
There has been a lot of publicity around the NextSeq 500 from Illumina, and it appears to have been designed to compete directly against Ion Torrent’s upcoming PII chip. Thanks to a visit to upstate New York last week, I met Dr. Sridar Chittur who told me how important it was to put current information out on this blog, and if I can put out the disclaimers up-front it would be very helpful for those thinking about what benchtop system to purchase over the next several months.