How to Prepare Your Lab for Next-Gen Sequencing and Big Data Science

Industry experts estimate that anywhere between 100 million to 2 billion genomes will be sequenced by 2025. With the growing demand for next-generation sequencing (NGS), from bases to whole genomes, and the growing demand for sequence-based drug discovery applications and diagnostic testing, there’s no denying that labs will need to accommodate a huge amount of data very soon.

What does genomics data look like?

In the next 10 years, it’s estimated that genomics data could account for up to 40 exabytes of data per year alone. To put this in perspective, 1 exabyte is equal to 1 billion gigabytes. That’s a whole lot of data that will need to be tracked, segmented, and stored for claims submissions and reimbursements.

An integrated, dynamic, customizable lab information system (LIS) has never been more critical to labs than now. Genomics is commonly referred to as “Big Data Science” for a very good reason. According to the National Human Genome Research Institute, the human genome holds approximately 3 million base pairs. That amount of data that’s stored and generated for a single genome is 30 times larger than the genome itself.

What can your lab do now to help maximize profits and grow revenue?

In recent years it’s become less and less expensive to perform next-gen sequencing to gather genomic data, and the data itself has become increasingly more critical to clinicians and researchers who are continuing to grow their demand for this type of testing. The revenue potential of sequence-based testing is very clear. To ensure your lab is able to accommodate genomics data, a flexible LIS is critical to your NGS strategy.

View this free on-demand webinar to learn how a highly flexible and versatile LIS can streamline NGS lab data and related billing processes.

We’ll walk you through XiFin’s LIS to demonstrate how to query for sequence-based data by commercial, research, or clinical trial use, and several other easy-to-use functionalities designed to integrate, collate, and store data from multiple information sources.