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February 13, 2012

Pacific Biosciences Releases Next Generation Chemistry and Software for PacBio® RS DNA Sequencing System

Fifty Presentations and Posters Will Describe Results Generated

with Single Molecule Real-Time Technology at This Week’s AGBT Conference

MENLO PARK, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–

Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc. (NASDAQ: PACB), provider of

Single Molecule Real Time (SMRT®) sequencing products, today

announced it has released a major upgrade to its PacBio® RS

system, referred to as “C2”, including new chemistry, enhanced SMRT

Cells and upgraded software, which together provide customers with

significant performance increases for DNA sequencing. The company and

numerous customers will discuss their progress with the platform through

a total of 50 presentations and posters at the 2012 Advances in Genome

Biology & Technology (AGBT) meeting this week in Marco Island, Fla.

The PacBio RS is a revolutionary DNA sequencing system that

reveals new biological insights by incorporating novel, single molecule

sequencing techniques, advanced analytics, and long read lengths.

Compared with the C1 versions launched with the system in April 2011,

the PacBio C2 chemistry and software provide approximately:

  • 2x increase in average read length;

  • 3-4x improvement in mappable data per SMRT Cell;

  • 50-80% reduction in input DNA required; and

  • Consensus accuracy of Q50 (99.999%) at substantially lower coverage.

“The changes we’ve made with this upgrade enable significant performance

increases and lay the foundation for ongoing enhancements to the PacBio RS,”

said Mike Hunkapiller, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of Pacific Biosciences.

“We’re very proud of how far we’ve come in the nine months since we

first released the product commercially, and even more proud of our

customers’ achievements, many of which will be highlighted this week at

AGBT.”

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and The Institute for Genome

Sciences (IGS) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine are

among the institutions that had early access to a preliminary version of

the new chemistry.

“The Sanger Institute has seen significant improvements in performance

compared to C1, enhancing our research projects in the areas of de

novo genome assembly, sequencing through repetitive elements,

enabling coverage of regions with extreme base composition, and

improving genome assemblies,” said Harold Swerdlow, Ph.D., Head of

Research and Development at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute.

Luke Tallon, Scientific Director of the Genomics Resource Center at IGS

added: “Early access to the new chemistry has resulted in significantly

improved read lengths compared to the original C1 chemistry. These

longer reads have enhanced our de novo genome assembly of

microbial genomes when combined with short-read data. The longer read

lengths have also increased our ability to generate higher-accuracy

circular consensus reads.”

The latest generation of SMRT Cells is more robust due to an improved

manufacturing process, and the PacBio RS software has been

enhanced for improved reliability and greater performance. To date,

Pacific Biosciences has developed two whole product solutions that

leverage the capabilities of the PacBio RS system to uniquely

enable key customer applications: 1) de novo whole genome

assembly and 2) targeted sequencing. As an example, the SMRT Analysis

software incorporates The

Genome Analysis Toolkit (GATK) developed by the Broad Institute.

This provides a streamlined pipeline for variant analysis for targeted

sequencing.

This week’s AGBT conference will feature a total of 35 presentations and

posters from PacBio customers, largely highlighting the two key

applications for the system. Scientists from PacBio will also present a

total of 15 presentations and posters about the technology. Details are

available at www.pacb.com/agbt2012.

For more information about Pacific Biosciences, please visit www.pacb.com.

You can also follow the company on Twitter www.twitter.com/pacbio.

About Pacific Biosciences, Inc.

Pacific Biosciences’ mission is to transform the way humankind acquires,

processes and interprets data from living systems through the design,

development and commercialization of innovative tools for biological

research. The company has developed a novel approach to studying the

synthesis and regulation of DNA, RNA and proteins. Combining recent

advances in nanofabrication, biochemistry, molecular biology, surface

chemistry and optics, Pacific Biosciences has created a powerful

technology platform called single molecule, real-time, or SMRT®,

technology. SMRT technology enables real-time analysis of biomolecules

with single molecule resolution, which has the potential to transform

the understanding of biological systems by providing a window into these

systems that has not previously been open for scientific study.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements. Forward-looking

statements may contain words such as “believe,” “may,” “estimate,”

“anticipate,” “continue,” “intend,” “expect,” “plan,” the negative of

these terms, or other similar expressions, and include the assumptions

that underlie such statements. Such statements include, but are not

limited to, statements regarding the Company’s SMRT technology. These

statements are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties that

could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or

implied by such statements, including but not limited to risks discussed

from time to time in documents Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc.

has filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the

risks identified under the section captioned “Risk Factors” in its

recently filed Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q. All forward-looking

statements are based on estimates, projections and assumptions as of the

date hereof. Pacific Biosciences undertakes no obligation to update any

forward-looking statements.

Media:
For Pacific BiosciencesNicole

Litchfield, 415-793-6468
nicole@bioscribe.com
or
Investors:
Pacific

BiosciencesTrevin Rard, 650-521-8450
ir@pacificbiosciences.com

Source: Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc.

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