Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Complete Genomics, a Silicon Valley company backed by venture capitalists, produced complete sequences of three people’s DNA at an average cost of $4,500, accelerating the race to develop faster, cheaper gene-mapping systems.

That’s about one-tenth as cheap as the $48,000 effort reported in August by Helicos Biosciences Corp. of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The first human genome map was completed by researchers in 2001 at an estimated cost of more than $100 million, according to a report published today in the journal Science. Complete Genomics funded the research.

Helicos, Illumina Inc. of San Diego, Pacific Biosciences Inc. of Menlo Park, California, and Roche Holding AG of Basel, Switzerland, are competitors trying to develop technology that would map the DNA of individuals for less than $1,000 and to sell systems to government and academic researchers. Complete Genomics is pursuing a different strategy, contracting with research institutions to perform genomic scans under contract, said Chief Executive Officer Clifford Reid.

“Our mission is to sequence a million genomes over the next five years,” Reid said in a telephone interview on Nov. 3. “That’s 1,000 people in each of 1,000 disease studies. By the time we’ve done that, we will have a deep understanding of the genetic basis of all the major human diseases.”

Code for Life

DNA is four-chemical code for making all the proteins in an organism. Reshufflings of the chemicals, called bases, instruct cells’ DNA as to which proteins to make, when to make them and in what amounts. Virtually every human cell has two strands of DNA, each 3 billion bases long.

For today’s Science report, led by Radoje Drmanac, the company mapped the genomes of two Caucasian males and a Yoruban female. Since the genes of all three had been analyzed before, the scientists were able to compare the results of their analysis to previous reports.

The company, based in Mountain View, California, read each pair of chemical bases an average of 45 to 87 times, with an accuracy rate of 99.9 percent, Drmanac said in a telephone interview. The $4,500 average cost for the three sequences reflected the cost of the chemicals and other materials, he said.

In August, Complete Genomics announced it had raised $45 million in new financing from two venture capital firms, Essex Woodlands Health Ventures and OrbiMed Advisors LLC. That brought to $91 million the amount raised by the company to date, Reid said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rob Waters in San Francisco at rwaters5@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 5, 2009 16:40 EST