Lest anyone wonder why Illumina is a target for a very persistent Roche, and why they in turn are adopting strong defensive measures, it's important to consider the role of sequencing in clinical diagnostics, especially in cancer applications. Washington Post.com video interview with Illumina CEO Jay Flatley points to the company's vision of a future in clinical applications for sequencing. If you've sequenced a tumor, you've got a 'much better roadmap" to treatment.
It's likely that payors would agree, given the drop in costs. With sequencing costs expected to get down to one thousand dollars, it's not hard to imagine that a DNA sequencing of a tumor will be seen as a reasonable investment for care of a patient if the outcome can be improved at all by a sequencing, and if it can better target the therapeutic steps. It's therefore not a business that a major marketer of IVD can ignore.
