June 2026—Illumina launched DRAGEN version 4.5 software, designed to deliver new ways to reduce noise, improve accuracy, and extract biological signals. The new version introduces analytical support for Illumina TruPath Genome, resolving 15 highly homologous, medically relevant genes for rare disease research, and offers expanded personalization, further reducing germline small variant errors. Personalization reduces false-positives and -negatives by about 20 percent, compared to v4.4. The addition of Middle Eastern reference genomes expands the DRAGEN pangenome to better represent the worldwide population. The release also introduces structural variant calling for Illumina’s 5-base solution, enabling more integrated genetic and epigenetic insight.
For oncology applications, v4.5’s machine-learning-driven somatic small variant calling reduces FFPE-associated false-positives by more than 90 percent for single nucleotide variants and more than 87 percent for indels. This version debuts oncovirus detection, which identified 100 percent of expected oncoviruses in internal tests and 18 additional oncoviruses. The software is available via on-premise servers and in the cloud.
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