I wonder how fast the flow cell price will drop. But even at $1000 I might be tempted, except that I'm so damn old, and never (as far as I know) had any kids.
While it mostly comes out to the same, I doubt the price will drop much, but rather they will release a newer iteration of flow cells with slower degradation or more redundancy.
There also doesn't seem to be any significant competition, as Oxford Nanopore has a very broad patent portfolio surrounding their tech.
- You'll probably need more than one flow cell (which is used up during sequencing) for a human genome
- The flow cells make up the bulk of the price, costing ~$800 in single unit quantities
- You have to send in used flow cells for refurbishing (which is how they can make them as cheap)
So the $1000 is more or less already the refurbished price.