9 September 2024
During the Illumina Genomics Summit on August 30, more than 200 of India’s preeminent genomics experts, clinicians, pathologists, translational researchers, and scientists convened at the Shangri-La Bengaluru. The purpose of the inaugural event convened by Illumina was for participants to share their knowledge and experience around advancements in genomics and multiomics.
“Illumina stands at the forefront of innovation and we are listening to our customers to drive our future road map,” said Illumina’s vice president of Product Management for next-generation sequencing (NGS), Joel Fellis, in his opening address. “We are removing the historical constraints of next-generation sequencing to unlock a deeper view of biology. And we’re building tools and workflow innovations to enable customers to unlock an unprecedented depth of biological insight using genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and more.”
“Nations are quickly moving from ‘sick care’ to personalized health care, broadly adopting NGS across health care systems,” said Graeme Bethel, head of Strategic Growth for Illumina’s AMEA region. He outlined the company’s recently released corporate strategy and how India is a critical part of its success.
Bethel recognized Illumina’s long-standing relationship of more than 18 years with our esteemed channel partner in India, Premas Life Sciences. He also counted a base of 294 Illumina instruments installed across 35 Indian states.
Expanding access to genomics in India will help develop opportunities for advancing health care. The country is on its way to becoming the world’s third-largest economy by 2030 and it continues to confront public health issues such as tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other infectious diseases. It is estimated that up to 96 million people in India have a rare disease, and one in nine people in India are likely to develop cancer in their lifetime.
The opportunity to collectively impact health outcomes attracted some of India’s greatest scientific minds to the summit. Distinguished guests included keynote speaker Utpal Tatu, PhD, professor and chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at the Indian Institute of Science. A panel titled “Unlocking the Power of Genomics to Improve Human Health: Bridging Gaps and Pioneering Partnerships” welcomed panelists B. S. Ajaikumar, MD, executive chairman of Healthcare Global Enterprises; Harsh Mahajan, MD, founder and managing director of Mahajan Imaging; Om Manchanda, DVM, managing director of Dr Lal PathLabs; Vedam Ramprasad, PhD, CEO of MedGenome; Ramesh Hariharan, PhD, CEO of Strand Life Sciences; and Samir Kumar Brahmachari, PhD, former director general of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and founder director of the CSIR Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology.
Moderating the panel was Praveen Gupta, managing director of Premas Life Sciences.
In 2023, Illumina opened an office and Illumina Solutions Center in Bengaluru, and this year a new Global Capability Center, which will employ more than 200 local software engineers, IT hardware and network engineers, system analysts, data engineers, data analysts, configuration analysts, data stewards, procurement buyers, supply chain planners, business process analysts, quality engineers, and other roles by the end of 2025.
To learn more about Illumina's expansion plans in India, click here.
