Illumina's acquisition of Somalogic is a clear IP play
Illumina announced on 23 June 2025 that it will acquire SomaLogic from Standard BioTools, for US$350 million cash plus up to US$75 million in performance-based payments, reinforcing its multiomics roadmap by embedding high-plex proteomics into its sequencing operations. The transaction, expected to close in the first half of 2026, leaves both companies operating independently until completion.
Illumina is very clear they are acquiring Somalogic for their products and technologies
Illumina are clear in their reasons for acquisition:
- SOMAmer related products and technologies, coupled with technology development capability
- Proteomics technologies and expertise
- Data-driven proteomics technology
Company Profiles:
Illumina, founded in 1998 and headquartered in San Diego, California, leads the global next‑generation sequencing market, powering genetic research, diagnostics and applied markets across oncology, reproductive health and agriculture.
Source: illumina.com/
SomaLogic, established in 2000 in Boulder, Colorado, specialises in high‑plex aptamer‑based proteomics assays and services for biomarker discovery in pharmaceutical, biotech and academic research.
Source: somalogic.com
Illumina plans to extend the scalability of NGS to proteomics
"The acquisition of SomaLogic will enhance Illumina’s presence in the expanding proteomics market and advance the multiomics strategy announced in 2024. This will strengthen the value of our sequencing platforms today and unlock greater capabilities in the future."
"Illumina and SomaLogic have partnered closely for more than three years, and this combination increases our ability to serve our customers and accelerate our technology roadmap towards advanced biomarker discovery and disease profiling."
"We are taking the scalability of NGS into proteomics."
Jacob Thaysen, chief executive officer of Illumina. [1]
This article examines Somalogic's patent portfolio to understand more deeply what Illumina have acquired.
SomaLogic's patent portfolio is built around four key platform technologies and two technology application areas
As of November 2022, Somalogic state on their website that their IP estate is built around four key platform technologies: Chemistry, Detection, SELEX and Data Analytics, and two technology application areas: diagnostics and therapeutics.
Somalogic's patent applications are growing, although rate of granted patents not keeping pace
Since 2009 Somalogic has published 963 patent application, and received 237 granted patents across 135 patent families.
The number of patent applications published per year has been between 40 and 90 during the period 2012 and 2024. Published patent application seem to peaked first in 2015 and then in 2022.
In contrast, published granted patents appear to have steadily fallen since 2015.
SomaLogic’s international filing strategy is evolving, becoming more focused
SomaLogic has filed patent applications in 33 countries. The top nine countries account for 752 filings—around 78 percent of the total. The remaining 24 countries cover the other 211 applications.
Patents have been granted in 12 countries. The US, Australia, and Europe (EP) represent the three largest jurisdictions, accounting for 69 percent of SomaLogic’s granted portfolio.
In its earlier years, the company sought broad geographic coverage—filing in over 30 countries. More recent filings are concentrated in just eight jurisdictions: the US, Europe, Canada, Australia, China, South Korea, and Mexico, with international (PCT) filings used as a stepping stone to those markets. The shift likely reflects a move to focus protection where it matters most commercially, while keeping overall patenting costs under control.
Somalogic's granted patents are based on innovations filed prior to 2016
The number of patent applications published annually seems to suggested a healthy and active innovation pipeline (see left-hand chart). However, if these are analysed in terms of year of filing, also known as priority year, then over the past 15 years the number of patent applications filed each year reached a peak of 126 in 2010 (see right-hand chart), and then gradually declined to around 45 per year up until 2022. Then in 2023 patent application filings dropped to a level lower than previous years, this could be an early sign something has changed. While patent application filed in 2024 were also lower than average we can assume this is primarily linked to delay between filing and publication of patent applications, and by the end of 2025 analysis of the published patents it highlight if the decline in files during 2024, and 2023, we significant.
To date Somalogic has received 237 granted patents, about 33% of patent applications. The majority of Somalogic's granted patents, 88%, were filed before 2016. Only 29 of the published granted patents - just 12% - have been filed since 2016.
Somalogic's recent patent families focusing on NGS sequencing of proteins and quality assessment
Somalogic's patent portfolio has 135 patent families with one or more member.
- The largest patent family has 80 members, and a priority date in 2007, the most frequent title found across this patent family is "Multiplex analyses of test samples".
- The largest patent families filed within the past 5 years are "Next-generation sequencing of protein measurement", and "Method for sample quality assessment".
Somalogic's patent portfolio may have been pruned prior to acquisition
Somalogic state they own or control 601 domestic and foreign issued patents, and 332 domestic and foreign pending patent applications. However, this is not what was found from searching EPO DOCDB patent data.
The patent portfolio information on their website predates the acquisition by Standard Biotools. It maybe they Standard Biotools have already transferred the patents they want from Somalogic to Standard Biotools. Consequently, we see a smaller patent portfolio.
"As of November 2022, SomaLogic owns or controls 601 domestic and foreign issued patents, and 332 domestic and foreign pending patent applications."
Source: Somalogic Website, Nov 2022
Illumina inherits a focused, well-aligned IP portfolio
SomaLogic’s patent portfolio reflects a company that has shifted from filing globally to one that has narrowed its focus to key markets and technologies. For Illumina, this represents a relatively lean portfolio—concentrated, granted, and aligned with core proteomic capabilities.
The question is whether this existing IP foundation will be built upon or simply slotted into Illumina’s broader multiomics roadmap.