Biotechnologie
10x Genomics (TXG): Biologische gegevens naar een nieuw niveau brengen
Waarom ruimtelijke biologie van belang is
The past decade has seen the rise of precisietherapieën en Next-Generation Sequencing (NGS), which have revolutionized diagnostics and medicine. These methods allowed doctors and researchers to move from an approach that targets the whole body (like with drugs) to tailored and targeted treatment or detection methods focused on a specific type of cell or DNA sequence.
Still, this is not the last level of how deep biological analysis could go. Even in a given organ or type of tissues (like, for example, the brain or a tumor), individual cells will act very differently from one another.
So while tools like NGS sequencers agglomerate the data from thousands or even millions of cells simultaneously, researchers often need to figure out what is happening in one single cell at a time, with a nanometer level of precision. To reach this level of detailed analysis, a new field of science was created: spatial biology. And one company is emerging as a leader in this field: 10x Genomics.
(TXG )
Wat is ruimtelijke biologie?
Wat ruimtelijke biologie meet (en waarom)
Instead of looking at the “mix” of molecules in a sample, spatial biology can determine where in a tissue or a single cell a molecule of interest, like a specific sequence of RNA, is located. And this is either in 2D or 3D.
This will tell researchers how cells interact with each other, how defense mechanisms activate, how a cell reacts to contact with a virus, and so on.
This also has the advantage of providing much more sensitive data. While data of something happening in just a few cells could be drowned in a larger sample, the targeted approach of spatial biology can reveal the key roles of localized phenomena or rare cell types.
More importantly, the data collected can be contextualized with the broader activity of surrounding cells in a tissue, which is a lot more informative than analysis from an isolated single cell or microdissection.
“Ruimtelijk geresolueerde transcriptomics benadrukt hoe deze technologieën zijn volwassen geworden en uitgebreid om biologen uitzonderlijke inzichten te geven in de biologie van individuele cellen, terwijl ze informatie over de ruimtelijke context behouden.”
Nature: Methode van het Jaar 2020: ruimtelijk geresolueerde transcriptomics
Belangrijke ruimtelijke-omics modaliteiten
Spatial Biology can be used to understand living cells and analyze specific signals. Among the many types of biological activities that can be measured this way, the most important that can be mentioned are:
- Spatial Genomics: de analyse van het DNA en het genoom.
- Spatial Transcriptomics: de analyse van mRNA, de feitelijke activiteit van de codering van het genoom.
- Spatial Proteomics: de analyse van tot expressie gebrachte eiwitprofielen zoals antilichamenreceptoren, immuunmarkers, enz.
- Spatial Metabolomics: de analyse van specifieke biomoleculen, zoals hormonen, kankermarkers, enz.
10x Genomics: Bedrijf & Platforms
10x Genomics is een van de pioniers op het gebied van single‑cell analyse en ruimtelijke biologie, en ontwikkelt sinds de oprichting in 2012 apparatuur in dit veld. Een van de oprichters, Serge Saxonov, was eerder de oprichtende architect en directeur onderzoek en ontwikkeling bij het genetische testbedrijf 23andMe.
10x Genomics ging in 2019 naar de beurs en heeft sindsdien een reeks single‑cell en ruimtelijke biologie‑analyse‑tools uitgebracht.
Bron: 10x Genomics
Chromium, Visium HD en Xenium
In total, the company has sold 7,000+ analytical instruments, of which 1,050+ were sold in 2024 alone.
While pure spatial biology is driving the company forward technically, it is the single-cell analysis Chromium platform that has sold the most for now, with 5,800+ units sold.
Bron: 10x Genomics
Bron: 10x Genomics
The two other main platforms of 10x Genomics are Visium and Xenium:
- Visium gebruikt NGS (genomisch) om een volledig transcriptoom te creëren voor elk klein gebied van 2 µm van een weefselmonster.
- Xeniumgebruikt beeldvorming (microscopie) om de genexpressie van gerichte genen (tot 5.000 genen) te meten voor elke individuele cel in een weefselmonster.
Overall, Visium will be most useful to researchers to give them an overview of the biological activity in a given area, while Xenium will give insight into specific activities they already know to be of interest in a specific case.
As more data accumulates and Xenium’s capacity grows, universal single-cell analysis at the tissue sample scale is likely to become the gold standard of biotech research.
Veeg om te scrollen →
| Platform | Primaire techniek | Wat het meet | Resolutie | Typische gebruikssituaties |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chromium | Single‑cell partitionering + NGS | Volledig transcriptoom single‑cell profielen (plus ATAC, V(D)J) | Cell‑niveau (geen ruimtelijke context) | Ontdekking van celtypen, trajectanalyse, immuunrepertoire |
| Visium HD | Ruimtelijke genexpressie (NGS) | Volledig transcriptoom over weefselsecties | ~2 µm pixels (single‑cell schaal) | Weefselarchitectuur, micro‑omgevingsmapping |
| Xenium | In‑situ beeldvorming (gericht) | Gerichte RNA (tot 5.000 genen) ± eiwit per cel | Subcellulair; per‑cel metingen | Pathologie‑gerelateerde studies, biomarkervalidatie |
Financiën van 10x Genomics
This generated $611M in revenues in 2024, of which $493M in consumables.
The high percentage of consumables in total revenues illustrates that the company’s business model is similar to NGS company Illumina (ILMN ), where the sale of equipment is driving long-term recurring sales of consumables (chemicals, dyes, reagents, etc.) to keep them operating.
Overnames
The company completed its technical offering by acquiring in 2018 Epinomics, a biotechnology company focused on epigenetics, and Spatial Transcriptomics, a biotechnology company focused on spatial genomics.
It was followed by the acquisitions of CARTANA (molecule detection in the cell – “in-situ”) and ReadCoor (sub-cellular nanoscale 3D resolution) in 2020, Tetramer (high-definition tissue analysis) in 2021, and Scale Biosciences (scalable single cell analysis) in 2025.
This makes 10x Genomics not just an innovator, but also an aggregator of these emerging technologies from smaller innovative teams. 10x Genomics then incorporates them into a cohesive whole and common analysis platform and tools, allowing researchers to use only one device for multiple types of analysis.
This is important for efficient R&D, as comparing results between different types of machines and analytical methods can be difficult, reducing the usefulness of disparate results from multiple sources.
Marktvooruitzicht voor ruimtelijke biologie (2025–2030)
Due to the extreme level of information it provides, spatial biology is a method in direct competition with many less precise and powerful legacy biological analysis tools, from decades-old ones like ELISA, Western blot, and PCR, to more advanced ones like flow cytometry or bulk sequencing.
Bron: 10x Genomics
Spatial biology, also sometimes called spatial-omics, was a $711M market in 2024 and is projected to reach $1,7B by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 16.3%.
It is worth noticing that while the 2020 recognition by Nature as a promising technique was the first inflection point, it is only now that technology is entering an exponential phase from a revenue growth point of view.
Bron: GrandView Research
For now, the market is mostly dominated by academic and research institute activity, with biotech and pharmaceutical companies only starting to adopt the technology for their own applied R&D needs. A lot of top scientific publications are now using 10x Genomics machines, a growing trend, as publishing new discoveries is a very competitive field.
Bron: 10x Genomics
As top scientific publications increasingly use spatial biology for new insights, the technology is becoming more commonly adopted in research labs, which need to stay competitive to keep publishing in top scientific journals.
It is, however, the private sector demand that is expected to drive the majority of new sales of the sector moving forward, as the technology is now better understood, cheaper than before, and a larger academic knowledge base of published scientific papers and databases, as well as trained biologists, can be leveraged to develop practical applications.
Overall, 10x Genomics expects to see biopharma revenues grow from 20% of its total revenues to 50% in the coming years.
Concurrentie in ruimtelijke & single‑cell biologie
Ruimtelijke biologie
Overall, the market for spatial biology can be divided by the companies operating in it, based on their geographical reach and technical expertise. Only 10x Genomics and Bruker can have both a global geographical reach and move beyond niche technical capacities.
Bron: GrandView Research
Bruker kocht de activa van 10x Genomics’ concurrent NanoString toen het in 2024 faillissement aanvroeg. It merged NanoString with previously acquired Canopy Biosciences and Acuity Genomics to form Bruker Spatial Biology.
NanoString and 10x Genomics have been involved in a complex patent-infringement litigation since 2023, which has significantly contributed to NanoString’s 2024 bankruptcy.
In mei 2025 kwamen de twee bedrijven overeen hun geschil te beëindigen na het ondertekenen van een wereldwijd cross‑licentie‑overeenkomst, waarmee alle rechtszaken worden beëindigd. This is overall good news for shareholders of both companies, as this removes a lot of uncertainty linked to these legal cases.
“We zijn enthousiast dat we ons kunnen richten op de impact en waarde die deze producten bieden voor ontdekkingsonderzoek, translationeel onderzoek en precisiegeneeskunde, en we zijn blij dat de afleiding en kosten van deze juridische zaken achter ons liggen.”
Concurrenten van single‑cell platformen
The market for single-cell analysis is a little more competitive, with, for example, new activity from large lab instrument makers like Qiagen moving with the acquisition of single-cell analysis company Parse Biosciences for $225M + milestone payments.
This segment might become progressively more competitive, as single-cell analysis becomes more common and new technology challenges 10x Genomics’ dominance with its Chromium platform.
However, as this market is a $3.5B market growing at 14.5% CAGR, there is likely space for more actors, each carving a specific niche depending on technical requirements and preinstalled base of equipment in a given research lab.
Van onderzoek naar diagnostiek: wat komt er hierna
For now, spatial biology is mostly a research tool, used to better understand living tissues’ activities at a level of precision never reached before. This is very similar to how advanced NGS (Next-Generation Sequencing) tools were used from the 1980s and 1990s to further our understanding of biology, both human and non-human.
Progressively, as these instruments got cheaper and knowledge accumulated, new applications kept being developed using NGS, and they became basic equipment of all biolabs.
Today, simple genetic tests are a common diagnostic tool, as illustrated by the omnipresent PCR tests during the COVID pandemic.
The same direction is likely to be seen with spatial biology. From the current academic research usage, usage by biotech and pharmaceutical firms will keep growing. First in their own applied research progress, and then in diagnostics: initially for serious cases like cancer, increasingly for mundane check-ups.
This gives companies like 10x Genomics a large space to expand, as this technology matures and continues to grow, similar to its older NGS counterpart, Illumina.
AI en ruimtelijke biologie: trainingsdata voor Bio‑AI
AI analysis is becoming a crucial tool in biology, perhaps not surprisingly, given that the main obstacle to progress in biotech is the sheer volume and complexity of biological data.
By creating a fully contextualized, coherent, and spatially resolved data set, 10x Genomics’s equipment is specially fit to create the dataset on which biotech AI can be trained.
“They have already advanced biological discovery, and with 10x’s innovation engine, that impact will only accelerate.
This integration will help the research community generate the high-quality data needed to drive AI-powered breakthroughs in medicine.
Garry Nolan, PhD, mede‑oprichter van Scale Biosciences (geacquireerd door 10x Genomics in 2025)
This, in turn, can be used to improve researchers’ understanding of what data still needs to be generated, creating further demand for spatial biology analytical tools.
Bron: 10x Genomics
AI also makes spatial biology more useful, as it can deal with the literal flood of data that the technology creates.
Data analysis has long been one of the biggest bottlenecks in single-cell and spatial research.
Our recent partnership with Anthropic helps address this issue and makes analysis more accessible by integrating it with Claude for Life Sciences.
With Claude, researchers can now perform common analytical tasks through a conversational interface that complements our existing computational workflows.
For example, such insights can enable scientists to better categorize tumor types and make more accurate predictions of responses to therapy, ultimately leading to improved patient outcomes.
Bron: 10x Genomics
Ultimately, enough gathered data could help create the so-called “Holy Grail of biology”: an AI-powered virtual cell realistic enough to allow for the perfect simulation of the real living cells.
There are strong reasons to expect that scaling of data will result in vastly more capable models, as it has in just about every other application of artificial intelligence.
These models hold the promise of transforming science, drug discovery, and ultimately human health. We believe that virtual cell efforts represent one of the most important trends in biology in the coming years.
Conclusie
10x Genomics beweegt zich van de fase van een innovatieve startup met een interessante technologie naar een sleutelpartner voor de meeste biologische onderzoeksorganisaties, zowel academisch als commercieel.
Het data‑rijke begrip van levende cellen en weefsels, gecreëerd door ruimtelijke biologie en single‑cell analyses, levert het soort informatie dat op het juiste moment kan worden benut door steeds krachtigere AI’s.
Dit zou op zijn beurt de ontdekkingssnelheid in biotech moeten versnellen en de apparatuur voor ruimtelijke biologie nog nuttiger maken, waardoor een positieve feedbacklus ontstaat.
Dit betekent niet dat het bedrijf een perfect veilige investering is. Omdat het opereert in een snel veranderend veld, is de concurrentie nog steeds intens, en NanoString, nu herrezen binnen Bruker, of bedrijven zoals Qiagen, zouden serieuze concurrenten kunnen zijn.
Maar voor nu heeft de snelle innovatie en strategische overnames van 10x Genomics het in een solide positie geplaatst om het veld te domineren.
