Covid-19 Illumina Sequencing; Former FDA Commissioner is on Board of Pfizer & Illumina

The Pfizer Board of Directors is comprised of twelve members. One of them is named Scott Gottlieb. The Illumina Board of Directors is comprised of nine members. One of them is the very same Scott Gottlieb.

What else do we know about him?

Scott Gottlieb

Pfizer: Board of Directors
Pfizer: Chairman of Regulatory & Compliance Committee
Pfizer: Member of Science & Technology Committee.
Illumina, Inc: Board of Directors
Aetion, Inc: Board of Directors
Tempus: Board of Directors
American Enterprise Institute: Resident Fellow
U.S. Food & Drug Administration: Commissioner 2017-2019
U.S. Food & Drug Administration: Deputy Commissioner for Medical & Scientific Affairs 2005-2007
U.S. Food & Drug Administration: Senior Advisor 2003-2004
T.R. Winston & Company: Managing Director 2013-2017
New Enterprise Associations: Special Partner 2007-2017
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services: Senior Advisor 2004
Mount Sinai Health System: Member of Board of Trustees
GlaxoSmithKline: Former Member of Product Investment Board
Tolero Pharmaceuticals: Former Independent Director
Daiichi Sankyo Inc. Pharmaceuticals: Former Independent Director
National Academy of Medicine: Member
Regular Contributor on CNBC & CBS Face the Nation

Covid-19 Sequencing

There’s a fairly easily identifiable pattern here:

Virus Isolation from the First Patient with SARS-CoV-2 in Korea [Archive]
- RNA libraries were prepared using TruSeq Stranded Total RNA Kit (catalog No. 20020596; Illumina, San Diego, CA, USA) according to the manufacturer protocol. Sequencing was performed on an Illumina Nextseq 500 platform.
Isolation and Full-Length Genome Characterization of SARS-CoV-2 from COVID-19 Cases in Northern Italy [Archive]
- All the obtained libraries passed quality check and were quantified before being pooled at equimolar concentration and sequenced on Illumina Nano MiSeq 2- by 150-bp paired-end mode following standard procedures.
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 isolate BetaCoV/Wuhan/IPBCAMS-WH-04/2019, complete genome [Archive]
- Sequencing Technology: Illumina
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 isolate Wuhan-Hu-1, complete genome [Archive]
- Sequencing Technology: Illumina
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 isolate SARS-CoV-2/human/TUR/IMU-SP-02/2020, complete genome [Archive]
- Sequencing Technology: Illumina
Whole-genome sequencing of SARS-CoV-2 reveals the detection of G614 variant in Pakistan [Archive]
- Sequencing was performed using NEBNext Ultra II Directional RNA Library Prep kit for Illumina (NEW ENGLAND BioLabs Inc., MA, US) and Illumina iSeq 100 instrument (Illumina, San Diego, US).
Reverse-transcribed SARS-CoV-2 RNA can integrate into the genome of cultured human cells and can be expressed in patient-derived tissues [Archive]
- We constructed libraries for HEK293T cell whole-genome sequencing using the Tn5-based Illumina DNA Prep kit (Illumina; 20018704). The whole-genome sequencing libraries or the libraries from Tn5-mediated integration site enrichment after sizing (described above) were subjected to Illumina sequencing.
- The pooled libraries were denatured using the Illumina protocol. The denatured libraries were loaded onto an SP flowcell on an Illumina NovaSeq 6000 and run for 2 × 150 cycles according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Fastq files were generated and demultiplexed with the bcl2fastq Conversion Software (Illumina).
SARS-CoV-2 isolation from the first reported patients in Brazil and establishment of a coordinated task network [Archive]
- The preparation of sequencing libraries for the Illumina platform was carried out with the Nextera XT Kit (Illumina, San Diego, USA) and multiplex testing, using the random two-step PCR amplification product as input, followed the kit’s standard instructions. The libraries were quantified after fluorescence measuring with the Qubit instrument (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, USA) and loaded on the NextSeq 550 equipment (Illumina) for sequencing with MID 300 paired-end reads (Illumina).
Rapid Genomic Characterization of SARS-CoV-2 by Direct Amplicon-Based Sequencing Through Comparison of MinION and Illumina iSeq100^TM System
- The sequencing-ready libraries were prepared using the Nextera DNA Flex Prep kit (Illumina, United States).
- The resulting libraries were sequenced using the iSeq100^TM system (Illumina, United States).
Rapid, Sensitive, Full-Genome Sequencing of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 [Archive]
- The first is a multiplex PCR panel, followed by sequencing on either the Oxford Nanopore MinION apparatus or an Illumina MiSeq apparatus.
- In addition, we sequenced these amplicons by using the Illumina MiSeq for comparison.

And an additional note on that last one: Oxford Nanopore:

Oxford Nanopore Technologies: Dr. John Milton: Chief Scientific Officer
- John joined us from Solexa (2001-2006), where, as Senior Director of R&D, he designed and built the Reversible Terminator chemistry that lies at the heart of Illumina‘s sequencing systems.
- At Solexa, as at Oxford Nanopore, John built up and managed large multidisciplinary scientific teams across a range of technical disciplines. His work in this field led to the scale-up and production of the chemical sequencing reagents for commercial launch of the Solexa sequencing system which was sold to Illumina in 2007 for $650million.

In other words, Oxford Nanopore is heavily influenced by the same man who helped invent the Illumina technology in the first place. And Illumina seems to be the technology of choice for Covid-19 sequencing.

Considering Pfizer is putting out a huge push for “Booster Shots” already, it seems that someone who is on the board of both Pfizer and Illumina would have some financial incentive to make sure that there continue to be more variants found – so that he can indirectly make money from sequencing them and then providing the vaccine thereafter. Not only that, but he has a long history of working with the Food & Drug Administration, who approved the Illumina technology for sequencing in the first place.