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Illumina Acquires Informatics Firm BlueBee

NEW YORK – Illumina announced Thursday that it has acquired Netherlands-based bioinformatics firm BlueBee, bolstering its cloud-based genomic analysis capabilities.

In a statement, Illumina said BlueBee's regulatory compliant, secure cloud platform simplifies access to data and could help lower the cost of storing, sharing, and managing large amounts of genomic data coming off Illumina's sequencers.

Financial and other terms of the deal were not disclosed.

"Combining BlueBee and Illumina software products provides the most scalable, efficient and extensible genomic analysis solutions for both clinical and translational research use cases," Illumina Senior VP of Product Development Susan Tousi said in a statement. "BlueBee truly brings unique capabilities, while ensuring secure deployment of clinical informatics across the globe, and together we hope to deliver an unprecedented learning environment in order to unlock the full potential of genomic insights."

In morning trading on the Nasdaq, shares of San Diego-based Illumina were up less than 1 percent at $362.46.

BlueBee, a spinout from Delft University of Technology, has built numerous partnerships with genomic tools and assay developers to bring bioinformatics pipelines and data analysis onto its platform. The firm raised $10 million in a 2016 Series A financing round.

Illumina suggested that integrating BlueBee into its cloud portfolio, which already includes the BaseSpace Sequence Hub, will give users access to streamlined data processing; tools to aggregate and collaborate on data; data science tools; and integrated business analytics. BlueBee's platform is available in on-premise deployment, as well as on the cloud.

"This combination can drive the entire global genomics ecosystem forward with robust, scalable architecture that supports customers' ability to scale analytic insights globally," Trey Martin, president of IDT said in a statement. IDT had previously partnered with both Illumina and BlueBee.