(Yicai) Feb. 5 -- US biotech firm Illumina has been added to China’s unreliable entity list, the commerce ministry said yesterday, in the latest trade move following the US government’s decision to impose a 10 percent import tariff on Chinese goods.

Illumina has violated fair market trading principles by cutting ties with Chinese firms and taking discriminatory measures that severely harm their legitimate rights and interests, the ministry said. The California-based firm will now face fines, as well as restrictions on imports and exports, investments, and personnel entry, it added.

Founded in 1998, Illumina is a global leader in gene sequencing and was once the only major global provider of core sequencing tools. It was also a key player in the Human Genome Project, an international scientific research program that mapped and sequenced the DNA instructions in human cells.

The gene sequencing industry is still highly concentrated, with Illumina, Thermo Fisher, and China's MGI Tech together holding nearly 90 percent of the market. According to data disclosed by its competitors, Illumina had 74 percent, 78 percent, and 71 percent of the global market share from 2019 to 2021, respectively.

By the end of 2023, Illumina had more than 25,000 sequencing machines installed worldwide, serving more than 9,500 customers globally, and these units continue to drive ongoing purchases of reagent kits.

But in recent years, Illumina has been challenged in China by the rise of domestic firms, shrinking its market share from 59 percent to 37 percent between 2020 and 2022. In 2023, its new installations in China fell to 26.5 percent of the market.

Editor: Tom Litting