PacBio Brand Guidelines: A Cornell Spin-Out, SMRT Cells & a Pink Benchtop

Three graduate students and a Cornell idea.

PacBio is the trading name of Pacific Biosciences of California, Inc., a sequencing company whose press releases are datelined Menlo Park, California. English Wikipedia dates its founding to 2004 and traces it to research at Cornell University that combined semiconductor processing and photonics with biotechnology. Three graduate students from the laboratories of Professors Watt W. Webb and Harold Craighead — Jonas Korlach, Steve Turner and Mathieu Foquet — became its first employees, and the business began under the name Nanofluidics, Inc.

In 2004 Hugh Martin, then an entrepreneur-in-residence at the venture firm Kleiner Perkins, became chief executive, English Wikipedia says; its backers also included Mohr Davidow Ventures, Alloy Ventures and the Wellcome Trust. The company went public in October 2010 and trades on Nasdaq under the ticker PACB. Its first instrument, the PacBio RS, went to a small group of customers in 2010 and on general release in early 2011; the RS II followed in April 2013 and the Sequel system, with more capacity in a smaller instrument, in September 2015. In late 2010 it chose the sequencing provider GATC Biotech as its first European service provider, English Wikipedia says.

Leadership has changed three times since. Michael Hunkapiller, a board member, became chief executive in January 2012 and retired in September 2020, when the chairman Christian Henry, formerly an Illumina executive, took over. On 5 August 2026 PacBio announced that its board had appointed Mark Van Oene, chief operating officer since 2021, as president and chief executive, with Henry staying on the board and as an adviser through the end of 2026.

One molecule, one well, one long read.

The technology is called single-molecule real-time sequencing, or SMRT. It follows DNA synthesis inside tiny wells known as zero-mode waveguides, which sit on a consumable chip the company calls a SMRT Cell. English Wikipedia says early cells were slightly under a centimetre square and held tens of thousands of these wells, while newer cells hold 25 million. PacBio sells its output under the name HiFi, its term for highly accurate long reads, and its analysis software has run from the open-source SMRT Analysis to today’s SMRT Link. In 2013 it released two further tools, HGAP for automated genome assembly and Quiver for finishing genomes.

Long reads are the point of difference. In December 2019 STAT explained that Illumina’s sequencers read short fragments of DNA and reassemble them, while PacBio’s technology “can read out much bigger pieces,” and that the two approaches can be used together.

The current range is built around two instruments. The high-throughput Revio arrived in 2022; English Wikipedia dates the launch to October of that year. In November 2024 Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News reported that PacBio had introduced the Vega, a benchtop system about two feet square, at the ASHG conference, with shipments planned from the first quarter of 2025. The company has since added chemistry upgrades under the names SPRQ and SPRQ-Nx; its November 2026 results release says SPRQ-Nx reached Vega in late August 2026. PacBio says its products are for research use only and not for use in diagnostic procedures.

Its launches have become part of the brand. GEN reported that the Revio was unveiled with a Maroon 5 concert and the Vega with OneRepublic, and quoted Henry: “We are trying to stand out!”

How sequencing companies present themselves.

DNA sequencing and genomics-tools companies sell to scientists, yet their pictures tend to repeat a small set of scenes: a benchtop instrument with a glowing panel in a clean, bright laboratory; a flow cell or chip held between gloved fingers; a colourful double helix or a data visualisation; a researcher studying results on a screen. Because the chemistry itself is invisible, the hardware, the consumables and the data become the main images.

Conferences are where many of these companies meet their customers. The Advances in Genome Biology and Technology meeting, known as AGBT, and the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics, known as ASHG, are regular venues for news. Oxford Nanopore says it presented its first nanopore sequencing data at AGBT in February 2012, and Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News reported in November 2024 that PacBio introduced its Vega benchtop sequencer at ASHG with a concert. Some companies run their own events too: Oxford Nanopore says it held the first London Calling conference for its users in May 2015.

Names and colours do much of the identity work. Instruments carry short, memorable product names, and some companies give their hardware one recognisable colour; GEN reported that PacBio’s new look, introduced with its Revio sequencer, came with a commitment to pink. The palettes in these guides are our own interpretations, not official colour standards.

This guide sets out what can be checked about each company — who founded it, who owns it, and which platforms it sells — and marks clearly what rests only on the company’s own word. Where a company describes its instruments as for research use only, or says they are not intended for diagnosis, as PacBio and Oxford Nanopore do, we report that as the company states it.

An abandoned takeover, a short-read detour and a new look.

For a time PacBio looked set to become part of its largest rival. On 1 November 2018 Illumina agreed to buy the company, English Wikipedia says. In December 2019 the US Federal Trade Commission challenged the deal, arguing, STAT reported on 17 December, that it would eliminate “a nascent competitive threat”; in October the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority had concluded that it might lessen competition. The two companies abandoned the deal on 2 January 2020.

PacBio then moved into short reads itself. On 20 September 2021 it closed its acquisition of Omniome, a San Diego company developing a short-read platform based on a chemistry called Sequencing by Binding, and added a San Diego site to its Bay Area headquarters; the resulting short-read system was sold as Onso. The detour was brief. In February 2026 PacBio said it had paused development of a high-throughput short-read platform in 2025 and had sold related intellectual property and other assets to Illumina, in a deal that closed on 30 January 2026, with Illumina licensing some of that intellectual property back to PacBio on a non-exclusive basis.

The look changed with the Revio. GEN reported in November 2024 that PacBio’s “new look,” introduced with the Revio two years earlier, came with a commitment to the colour pink, and that the Vega is pink too. The company describes its own mission as enabling “the promise of genomics to better human health.”

For a design guide, PacBio shows how a scientific-instrument maker can give its hardware one recognisable colour and launch it like a consumer product. Compare Illumina, the rival that once agreed to buy it, and Oxford Nanopore, another long-read sequencing company. For this guide we use a bright pink, a deep plum and a near-black with a sans, an unofficial interpretation; no product or logo is reproduced.

Keep PacBio’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.