Fremont – October 19, 2026 -- Ultima Genomics' UG200 Sequencing Platform has been selected to power a single-cell immune profiling study of 80,000 UK Biobank blood samples, run with IMU Biosciences to produce a foundational dataset for AI.
Study starts with 80,000 samples and targets the full 500,000-participant cohort
The project combines IMU's High Definition (HD) Immunology platform, the BD FACSDiscover Cell Analyzer platform, the BD Rhapsody single-cell multiomics platform from Waters Corporation and Ultima's sequencing. The initial cohort is 80,000 blood samples from UK Biobank participants. The partners aim to expand across the full UK Biobank cohort of 500,000 participants.
Work begins in 2026. It adds an immune profiling layer to UK Biobank's existing de-identified genomic, imaging, clinical and lifestyle data. The resulting data will be returned to UK Biobank over time and made available to approved researchers studying how immune variation relates to disease risk, progression, treatment response and long-term health outcomes.
UG200 shipped broadly after a February 2026 early-access launch
Ultima launched the UG200 in February 2026 to select early access sites, and the platform is now shipping broadly. The company says it was validated with the BD Rhapsody platform and meets the quality, cost and scale requirements of the project. Ultima states that the pairing makes sequencing-intensive single-cell multiomics applications economically viable at population scale.
The partners say the collaboration is designed to deliver immune data at the scale, reproducibility and resolution needed for broad biomedical research and future immune-prediction studies. Ultima's NGS cost roadmap and automation are intended to support planning and continuation of larger, AI-scale projects over time.
Ultima extends its UK Biobank role beyond the 600,000-sample proteomics project
The selection follows Ultima's earlier choice as the sequencing technology for the 600,000-sample UK Biobank Pharma Proteomics Project. Ultima CEO Gilad Almogy said population-scale immune studies require sequencing that is "high-throughput, high-quality, and at extremely low cost." He said the ongoing proteomics work demonstrates the platform's suitability for large-scale omics data generation from large, deeply characterized biobank cohorts.