Illumina estimated last year that the total addressable market for DNA sequencing was $20 billion, and Illumina's Jay Flatley now tells Luke Timmerman at Forbes that "if you were to ask us what we think it is today, it's substantially bigger."
He adds that this increase is due to new market opportunities, particularly in reproductive health, oncology, consumer, and population sequencing. "Those are four really gigantic markets out there that we're really just beginning to scratch the surface of," Flatley tells Timmerman in a Q&A.
Flatley notes that pilot studies in the UK and US focused on sequencing large numbers of people to better understand health outcomes, particularly in rare pediatric diseases and oncology, are also driving the market.
At the same time, he tells Zimmerman that the company worries about competition but also about regulatory scenarios, especially as they differ around the world. He notes that China presents "a massive market opportunity," though it can be a "challenging marketplace to do business" in.