The Price of DNA Sequencing Dropped From $2.7 Billion to $300 in Less Than 20 Years

Nebula Genomics is offering access to your entire genetic makeup for less than the price of an Apple Watch

Photo: Science & Society Picture Library/SSPL/Getty Images

Genome sequencing was once impossibly expensive. The Human Genome Project, an international effort to decode the human genome that launched in 1990, took 13 years and an estimated $2.7 billion to complete. Then, in 2007, DNA pioneer James Watson became the first person to get his genome sequenced for less than $1 million. Since then, the cost of genome sequencing has been decreasing at a rate faster than Moore’s law.

Now, Nebula Genomics, a spinout of Harvard University co-founded by geneticist George Church, is launching an at-home whole genome sequencing test for less than the price of the latest Apple Watch. At $299, Nebula’s service provides a readout of a person’s entire genetic code.

Nebula’s sequencing is a much more comprehensive test than the ones offered by companies like 23andMe and Ancestry, which use a different technique called genotyping. Genotyping looks at only a small part of the genome. For instance, 23andMe’s $199 health and ancestry test reports on a handful of genetic variants associated with about a dozen health conditions. Sequencing looks at all of a…