# Pacific Biosciences **Source:** https://geo.sig.ai/brands/pacific-biosciences **Vertical:** Life Sciences & BioTech **Subcategory:** Long-Read Sequencing **Tier:** Growth **Website:** pacb.com **Last Updated:** 2026-04-14 ## Summary Pioneer of single-molecule real-time (SMRT) long-read sequencing; Revio system targets clinical and research markets. Guides to $150–$170M FY2025 revenue with 40%+ gross margins. ## Company Overview Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) was founded in 2004 in Menlo Park, California and pioneered single-molecule real-time (SMRT) sequencing technology, enabling long-read DNA sequencing that can span tens of thousands of base pairs per read. This capability is essential for resolving complex genomic regions—structural variants, repeat expansions, methylation patterns, and full-length transcripts—that short-read platforms like Illumina cannot accurately assemble.\n\nPacBio's Revio system, launched in 2023, offers a dramatic improvement in throughput and cost efficiency over prior instruments, targeting both research and clinical sequencing laboratories. Key applications include rare disease diagnosis, pharmacogenomics, plant and animal genomics, and clinical oncology. The company guides to $150–$170 million in FY2025 revenue with gross margins exceeding 40% and a path to cash flow breakeven by 2027.\n\nPacBio competes primarily with Oxford Nanopore Technologies in the long-read segment, together driving adoption of long-read sequencing for comprehensive genome assembly and clinical applications. The company is expanding its high-accuracy (HiFi) chemistry and developing Onso, a short-read system, to capture a broader share of the sequencing market. With approximately $260 million in cash, PacBio is well-positioned to scale its clinical business. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What makes PacBio long-read sequencing different? PacBio's SMRT technology produces reads spanning tens of thousands of base pairs with high accuracy, resolving structural variants, repeat regions, and epigenetic marks that short-read platforms miss. ### What is PacBio's flagship instrument? The Revio system, launched in 2023, is PacBio's high-throughput long-read instrument offering dramatically improved cost and throughput for clinical and large-scale research sequencing. ### How does PacBio compare to Oxford Nanopore? Both offer long-read sequencing; PacBio HiFi delivers higher base-call accuracy (99.9%+) while Oxford Nanopore offers real-time sequencing, portability, and ultra-long reads beyond 1 Mb. ### What is HiFi sequencing? HiFi (Highly accurate long reads) sequencing is PacBio's core technology that uses multiple passes of the SMRT polymerase around a circular DNA molecule to achieve >99.9% single-molecule accuracy while maintaining long read lengths — combining the accuracy of short reads with the length advantage of nanopore sequencing. ### What clinical applications is PacBio targeting? PacBio is targeting clinical applications where long-read accuracy is essential, including structural variant detection for rare disease diagnosis, HLA typing for transplant matching, pharmacogenomics, and comprehensive variant calling in regions of the genome that short-read technology cannot reliably sequence. ### Is Pacific Biosciences publicly traded? Yes. Pacific Biosciences of California trades on the Nasdaq under the ticker PACB. The company has been public since 2010 and has operated at a loss while investing in technology development and commercial expansion. ### What is PacBio's Onso short-read sequencer? Onso is PacBio's short-read sequencing instrument launched in 2023, competing with Illumina in the high-accuracy short-read space using a proprietary sequencing-by-binding chemistry. Onso targets applications where short-read accuracy suffices but users seek an alternative to Illumina platform dependence. ### How is Pacific Biosciences funded? Pacific Biosciences has been funded through public equity markets and has received strategic investments including from Softbank. The company has invested heavily in technology development and commercial scale-up of the Revio instrument to drive the cost per genome down to competitive levels with Illumina. ### What is Pacific Biosciences' sequencing technology? Pacific Biosciences (PacBio) develops long-read DNA sequencing systems using Single Molecule Real-Time (SMRT) sequencing technology. SMRT sequencing observes individual DNA polymerase molecules incorporating fluorescently labeled nucleotides in real time, producing very long reads (10,000-100,000+ base pairs) with high consensus accuracy that enables comprehensive genome assembly and structural variant detection. ### What is the Revio sequencer and who uses it? The Revio is PacBio's high-throughput HiFi long-read sequencer launched in 2023, designed for population-scale sequencing projects. It produces 90+ Gb of HiFi data per day, enabling whole genome sequencing of 1,300+ human genomes annually per instrument. Target customers include large genome centers, pharmaceutical companies, and national genomics programs conducting population health sequencing. ### What is HiFi sequencing and why does it matter? HiFi (High Fidelity) sequencing is PacBio's chemistry that produces long reads with very high accuracy (>99.9% single-molecule accuracy). This combination of length and accuracy—which other long-read platforms do not achieve simultaneously—enables superior variant calling, phasing of heterozygous variants, detection of structural variants, and accurate analysis of repetitive genome regions that short-read sequencing cannot resolve. ### What is PacBio's commercial and financial status? Pacific Biosciences (Nasdaq: PACB) is publicly traded and has invested heavily in developing its Revio system and new Onso short-read platform. The company is pre-profitability and competing primarily against Illumina in sequencing market share. PacBio's strategy is to establish long-read sequencing as the standard for comprehensive genome analysis and clinical sequencing as regulatory pathways mature. ### How does PacBio's technology complement Illumina short-read sequencing? PacBio and Illumina are frequently used as complementary technologies—Illumina for high-throughput variant discovery across populations due to low cost per base, and PacBio for comprehensive reference genome assembly, structural variant detection, phasing, and analysis of difficult genomic regions. As PacBio's HiFi accuracy has improved, some applications are shifting from combined Illumina+PacBio workflows to PacBio-only analysis. ## Tags b2b, global, public, healthtech, hardware, analytics, platform --- *Data from geo.sig.ai Brand Intelligence Database. Updated 2026-04-14.*