Outsourcing DNA Sequencing Work

Pharma, biotech and agriculture markets as well as academic institutions are craving for DNA sequence information as their future is depending on genome data in silico. Scientists understand the business side of the sector, and realize that outsourcing can be a pretty cost efficient way to get the data they need, rather than investing in the resources to perform the sequencing in their labs. In addition, outsourcing gives these institutions the ability to focus their efforts on their core competencies, usually drug discovery and development, instead of acquiring the tools for sequencing.

In the global world specialized work is the business of big industrial giants. When you talk about steel industry Baosteel and Krupps comes first to mind. Search engine work is the job of giants like Google and Yahoo. “Oil bidness” belongs to international giants such as BP and Shell. Honda, Toyota, and Tata are exemplar automobile giants.

The genome sequencing work is the biggest bio-tech business for the next decade. The question is who is going to do the job ?

Are there going to be international giants that will be pumping genome data to the industry and academia ?

Is that industry going to be mainly outsourced to a particular country the way call center service is outsourced to India ?

Should a giant equivalent in size and technology to Google be responsible to process all the genomic information of the world ?

World DNA information in the hands of an international giant.

Well, this is definetly beyond imagination of George Orwell.