Oxford Nanopore announces PromethION Plus Flow Cell and other human genetics updates at ASHG 2025
At the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) 2025 industry session on 16th October, Oxford Nanopore Technologies will share its latest developments in enabling translational and clinical human genetics communities to deliver improved insights into mechanisms for disease in one integrated analysis.
The team will highlight the unique capabilities of the PromethION in delivering comprehensive whole genomes and methylomes, alongside transformational, information-rich targeted assays using adaptive sampling.
By delivering fully comprehensive genomic insights, Oxford Nanopore customers are deploying the technology in translational clinical settings to solve diagnostic odysseys in rare disease, enhance cancer characterisation, and drive novel discoveries in common complex disease.
Oxford Nanopore will introduce the PromethION Plus Flow Cell – a new ultra-high-output flow cell designed to deliver increasingly cost effective, comprehensive genomes and methylomes.
Driving value for human geneticists with adaptive sampling and new rapid workflows
At ASHG, Oxford Nanopore will share a series of updates that support the human genetics and translational research communities. These advances expand access to rapid, information-rich genomic and epigenomic analysis through new workflows and targeted sequencing solutions, including:
- The use of adaptive sampling for targeted sequencing –a fast and flexible method to enrich regions of interest that is unique to Oxford Nanopore, eliminating the need for laborious and time intensive optimisations in common capture methods. Multiple applications include:
- A hereditary cancer panel that interrogates 258 genes associated with inherited cancer risk and enables laboratories to speed up sample-to-answer.
- Rapid tumour methylation profiling
- Comprehensive pharmacogenomics panels
- Launch of a 24-hour workflow for comprehensive human genome analysis, that delivers sample-to-answer insights in a single day, supporting critical research in Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) and enabling rapid and comprehensive genomic insights in rare disease.
PromethION Plus Flow Cells for fully comprehensive, cost-effective human genomes and methylomes
PromethION Plus will deploy an improved flow cell chemistry designed to deliver high data output, enhanced consistency, and value for high throughput human research applications - without the need for flow cell washing. Delivering comprehensive genomic and epigenetic data, PromethION Plus Flow Cells will uniquely be delivered at scale on the PromethION 24 device.
This marks an important step toward multiplexing multiple genomes per PromethION Flow Cell, providing a clear pathway to significantly reducing the cost of premium, fully comprehensive, scaled human genomes and epigenomes below $345 (at 30x coverage), and beyond with future chemistry upgrades on the development roadmap.
PromethION Plus Flow Cells will be introduced in limited release in Q4 2025, with broader availability in 2026.
The new flow cells benefit all human genetics applications where comprehensive genomic and epigenetic data is required at scale. This includes discovery within population-scale studies, as well as high-throughput characterisation of clinical samples, such as those analysed in rare disease or cancer.
Technical overview
Optimised for use with 15–30 kb fragment libraries, PromethION Plus Flow Cells will deliver high output, rich sequencing data for robust and reliable calling of a broad range of genetic variants, including methylation.
Technical overview
Optimised for use with 15–30 kb fragment libraries, PromethION Plus Flow Cells will deliver high output, rich sequencing data for robust and reliable calling of a broad range of genetic variants, including methylation.
Users can expect:
- Significantly increased flow cell output with large fragment libraries (>15kb)
- Reduced hands-on-time with no wash protocols (15kb libraries)
- Lower input requirements
- Best value per 30x genome for high throughput sequencing customers
- Prepares the platform for faster kit chemistry to deliver further output improvements planned for 2026
ASHG event
Oxford Nanopore will host an industry education session at ASHG:
Sequencing from large scale to single cell – the new era of biological discovery
Location: Room 153 ABC
Date: Thursday, October 16th
Time: 12:00 pm — 1:00 pm EDT
