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Rhapsody (refresh under Waters) — Waters (ex-BD)

Waters re-introduces the BD Rhapsody single-cell multiomics platform under new ownership at AGBT 2026; the chemistry is unchanged but the portfolio framing and director-level hires are new.

At a glance

  • Vendor / launch date / availability: Waters Corporation (acquired Rhapsody from BD); re-introduction at AGBT 2026 (Marco Island, Feb 22–25); platform is shipping as existing inventory under the new owner per GEN AGBT 2026 recap, Feb–Mar 2026.
  • Chemistry / modality: Rhapsody microwell-based single-cell multiomics — magnetic-bead barcoded mRNA capture, optional AbSeq protein co-detection, optional TCR / BCR targeted assays; unchanged from the BD-era platform.
  • Throughput / plex: Existing Rhapsody specs carry over; current figures are TBD under Waters branding (Waters has not republished a refreshed datasheet at AGBT).
  • Read length / accuracy: n/a (library output goes to a third-party short-read sequencer — typically Illumina or AVITI).
  • Personnel signal: Luciano Martelotto hired as director — flagged in program-notes.md as the most visible AGBT 2026 indicator that Waters intends to invest in the single-cell line rather than wind it down per GEN AGBT recap.
  • List price / cost-per-sample: TBD — Waters has not republished list pricing post-acquisition.

What's new vs prior generation

The Rhapsody instrument is essentially the same hardware-and-chemistry stack BD has shipped since the mid-2010s. What's new at AGBT 2026 is the portfolio framing: Waters is folding Rhapsody into its broader analytical-instruments business and signaling — via the Martelotto hire and the AGBT booth presence — that the platform stays alive rather than being sunset post-acquisition. Effectively a positioning launch, not a technology launch.

Headline benchmarks

Existing BD Rhapsody specs carried over to Waters branding; no refreshed throughput, plex, or accuracy figure published at AGBT 2026 (vendor PR — no independent benchmark) — GEN AGBT 2026 recap, Feb–Mar 2026.

No new third-party benchmark accompanies the Waters re-introduction; cell-recovery, gene-detection, and AbSeq-protein-plex figures remain the BD-era numbers and should be treated as carry-over.

Reception / competitive context

Single-cell multiomics is dominated commercially by 10x Genomics Chromium at the high end and by Parse Biosciences / Scale Biosciences / Honeycomb / Fluent at the high-throughput / lower-cost end. Rhapsody's microwell architecture is a structural alternative to Chromium's droplet workflow with native AbSeq protein co-detection — historically a strong angle but commercially underexploited under BD ownership. AGBT 2026 coverage treats the Waters re-launch as a "will Waters actually invest?" question; the Martelotto director hire is the strongest answer-in-the-affirmative signal as of mid-May 2026. Indirect competition from Atera / Xenium / CosMx is now also relevant because in-situ spatial multiomics is pulling cancer-cohort budget that previously went to dissociated single-cell.

  • Primary single-cell competitor: 10x Genomics Chromium ecosystem (out-of-vault).
  • Spatial-multiomic crossover competitors at AGBT 2026: 10x Xenium RNA+Protein, CosMx mouse WT + 64-protein — both are pulling tumor-microenvironment work that historically used dissociated Rhapsody / Chromium.
  • AACR 2026 cross-axis: single-cell talks — Rhapsody + AbSeq is a recurring AACR poster modality especially in immune-monitoring and CAR-T workflows; AACR 2026 posters are still labeled "BD Rhapsody" but AACR 2027 / 2028 will see the Waters-branded reagent on incoming posters.
  • Bioconductor: standard SingleCellExperiment ecosystem applies; no Rhapsody-specific reader changes from the Waters re-brand.

Sources