Marking the dawn of a new year includes looking back and assessing our accomplishments and lessons learned. And, as it turns out, 2023 was a standout year for Element Biosciences and the Element AVITI™ System. As we continue to innovate on our product offerings and engage with an increasing number of customers and partners, Element looks forward to making 2024 even more productive. We’re proud to share some of what we’ve achieved with an eye on what’s to come in 2024.
Committed to constantly innovating
Our unique avidite base chemistry (ABC) offers a completely different next-generation sequencing (NGS) solution. ABC lowers run costs and improves performance through innovations across all fronts of surface chemistry, biochemistry, engineering, and data analysis. A modular foundation ensures extensibility.
Building on our customer-centric model, Element continued to innovate in 2023, launching several new solutions. In 2023, we built out the $200 genome program, launched Cloudbreak enhancements to our ABC technology to reduce run times, increase accuracy, and enable even more applications, and released a suite of products called AVITI FIT for even more flexibility.
With Cloudbreak, customers can scale their experiments and enhance efficiency in multiple ways, including increased sequencing speed with 20% faster run times. AVITI FIT expands on AVITI by offering a suite of lower throughput capabilities, longer read lengths, and individually addressable lanes—all at a low cost.
Earning credibility and gaining influence one AVITI at a time
We know we’re a young company with a new technology—and that we’ve got our work cut out for us when it comes to building trust with our customers. Element has already made significant strides in a competitive and wide-ranging NGS market, gaining international attention and acclaim. Cofounder and CEO Molly He, PhD, was included in the Forbes 50 over 50: Innovation list for 2023. With her help, we have raised more than $400 million from investors.
And did you know that we’ve already sold 100 instruments? In September 2023, Element announced that we had exceeded 100 orders of AVITI. With US and international customers in 25 countries, we’ve expanded our commercial team globally through direct sales and distribution networks. Element has also signed distribution agreements with 11 distributors across the globe. By building interest and delivering on our products, we’ve greatly expanded our reach.
Talking customer success
Not only has Element launched upgrades and continued to expand our reach, we’re also starting to hear success stories from AVITI customers. In a Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN)-hosted webinar, “AVITI in Action,” three of our earliest customers—Anoja Perera, Stowers Institute for Medical Research; Adam Majot, PhD, AgriPlex Genomics; and Lutz Froenicke, PhD, University of California, Davis—participated in a panel discussion where they shared insights about AVITI, from purchase to experiment.
Majot said that AVITI FIT stood out as a “great addition,” and pointed to the low- and mid-output sequencing kits. “It’s really nice to have the flexibility to run more specifically for the number of reads you actually expect,” he said. “It’s easier on our servers, easier on our storage.” Froenicke, who runs a core lab, highlighted how useful independent dual flow cells are for faster turnaround and cost-effective scaling, commenting that other sequencers “are too big for us, that would slow us down way too much.” Essentially, AVITI produces runs at a cost comparable to a high-throughput instrument without needing to batch.
The cost savings are undeniable. “I started looking at the data and the cost savings, and I just had to get it,” Perera said. “We are seeing huge cost differences,” estimating about 50% in savings. Element “came up with a sequencing chemistry that is so different from anything else—very, very different—and it works amazingly well,” Froenicke said. “It is very impressive.”
Low cost does not equal low performance, however. Admitting that he was “a little skeptical at first,” the “phenomenal data” was what ultimately won over Majot. “[We] run into a lot of homopolymers and short nucleotide repeats, and it handles those extremely well; and the reliability of the data that we get is quite good ... especially with long stretches of homopolymers,” he said.
Element in the journals—onward and upward
One final note from 2023: we’re starting to see momentum with preprints. Scientists validated the accuracy of our data in multiple studies, most recently one from Andrew Carroll, PhD, and a team at Google in an ABC-focused preprint “Accurate human genome analysis with Element Avidite sequencing.”
In Asia, customer Burning Rock Dx, a biotechnology company focused on precision oncology, bought several AVITI systems after performing validation work to support research activities. “The data quality of Element gave us a lot of confidence, as we saw improved sequencing accuracy, better genome coverage, lower duplication rates, and better performance in difficult genomic areas such as homopolymer region,” said Chief Technology Officer Joe Zhang, PhD. “This can help us further improve the performance of oncology research products and continue to strengthen our technological leadership.” The preprint outlines a path for reducing the price of comprehensive genomic profiling.
Ready to change your NGS game? Meet us at an upcoming events in 2024 to learn more about how AVITI can kickstart your research.