Illumina is diving deeper into proteomics research with a $425 million plan to acquire SomaLogic, including its protein analysis platforms and certified lab services business.
The deal with SomaLogic’s corporate owner, Standard BioTools, includes $350 million in upfront cash plus up to $75 million in performance-based milestones and royalties linked to certain library prep kit sales.
Illumina said the acquisition will bolster its multiomics strategy to diversify beyond DNA sequencing and builds on a yearslong collaboration with the company, while Standard BioTools said the turnaround sale—with it only taking control of SomaLogic in January 2024—now gives it an opportunity to simplify its operating structure, focus on its own genomic profiling solutions and work to break even financially.
“Since acquiring SomaLogic 18 months ago, we have fundamentally transformed the business—repositioning the SomaScan technology, improving operations, investing in high-impact head-to-head studies and ramping strategic biobank activity—successfully establishing it as a category leader in high-plex proteomics,” Standard BioTools President and CEO Michael Egholm said in a statement. “We see Illumina as the right strategic partner to integrate these capabilities under one roof and lead SomaScan into its next phase of growth.”
“This strategic sale demonstrates the strength of our model and our ability to identify high-potential yet underappreciated assets, apply lean principles through the Standard BioTools Business System (SBS) and generate returns aligned with the economic interests of our shareholders, resulting in a clean balance sheet with at least $550 million in cash at closing,” Egholm added.
Under the deal, Standard BioTools will retain commercialization rights to some of the division’s Single SOMAmer Reagents, which can be used in the SomaScan platform as well as in ELISA tests and other research workflows. The companies said they expect the transaction to close in the first half of next year.
“The acquisition of SomaLogic will enhance Illumina's presence in the expanding proteomics market and advance the multiomics strategy we announced in 2024. This will strengthen the value of the NovaSeq X product today and unlock greater capabilities in the future,” said Illumina CEO Jacob Thaysen, Ph.D.
The two companies previously signed an agreement in 2021 to bring the SomaScan Proteomics Assay to Illumina’s next-generation sequencing platforms. Dubbed Illumina Protein Prep, it is currently being used by a few dozen international early-access customers; Illumina said it will become available to all customers in the third quarter of this year.
“Illumina and SomaLogic have partnered closely for more than three years, and this combination increases our ability to serve our customers and accelerate our technology roadmap towards advanced biomarker discovery and disease profiling,” Thaysen said.
“We are taking the scalability of NGS into proteomics,” he added. “Illumina will remain an open, accessible, and enabling NGS platform. The Company is committed to maintaining and supporting its existing proteomics partnerships as well as continuing to develop the sequencing ecosystem and supporting a wide variety of multiomics solutions.”
SomaLogic counts about 250 worldwide employees across commercial, R&D, manufacturing and other operations and maintains CLIA- and CAP-certified lab space in Boulder, Colorado. Illumina said it expects the business to become profitable in 2027.