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SPRQ-Hq + SMRT-cell reuse — PacBio

At a glance

  • Vendor: PacBio
  • Launch date / venue: AGBT 2026 (Marco Island, FL, Feb 22–25, 2026)
  • Availability: Beta at AGBT → international early access Feb 2026; broad rollout 2026 per PacBio AGBT 2026 coverage / GEN recap
  • Modality: Revio chemistry update enabling 2 sequencing runs per SMRT cell (beta) per PacBio AGBT 2026 disclosure (vendor PR — no independent benchmark)
  • Accuracy: HiFi accuracy retained (Q≥30 base; >Q40 consensus) per PacBio
  • Cost-per-genome: $300 / 30× HiFi genome when paired with SPRQ-Nx per Bio-IT World on PacBio JPM 2026 SPRQ-Nx economics (vendor PR — no independent benchmark)

What's new

SPRQ-Hq lets a single Revio SMRT cell run twice in sequence, effectively doubling output per consumable without instrument changes. Paired with SPRQ-Nx volume economics communicated at JPM 2026, PacBio's pitch is that population-scale long-read WGS reaches a per-genome price point competitive with mid-tier short-read offerings, while retaining HiFi accuracy and read length.

Headline benchmarks

  • 2 runs/SMRT cell in beta — vendor claim; independent throughput-stability and run-to-run cross-contamination data not yet released per PacBio AGBT 2026 sessions (vendor PR — no independent benchmark).
  • $300 per 30× HiFi genome (paired with SPRQ-Nx) per Bio-IT World JPM 2026 coverage — list-price equivalent; absent volume-discount and amortization terms.

Reception / competitive context

SPRQ-Hq is PacBio's direct rebuttal to Roche Axelios 1's "$150 / 30× duplex genome" pitch and Illumina TruPath's "$395 / genome" synthetic long-read offering. On the long-read side, it puts PacBio in the same per-genome price band as Axelios while keeping HiFi's accuracy and read-length advantage and the existing Revio install base.

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