The ambitious buy out of PacBio by Illumina has run into rough weather, thanks to Federal Trade commission flagging the company for seeking to monopolise the market for next-gen sequencing by acquiring Pacific Biosciences and wiping it out of competition. The deal was announced as long as November 2018. The merger, valued at $ 1.2 billion, is now as good as called off.

The decision to scrap the deal came after five members of the Federal Trade Commission unanimously voted to authorise restraining order and preliminary injunction against the company. By passing the order, the Trade Commission hopes that the world will continue to benefit from the independent innovative efforts of these two companies to develop faster, better and less expensive next gen sequencing technologies.