(December 7, 2015, Nanalyze) Illumina (NASDAQ:ILMN) has been a resounding success story for disruptive technology investors. Since their IPO in 2000, the company has returned over +813% in share price appreciation for investors. Those who would have bought Illumina exactly 10 years ago when the share price was depressed would have realized a staggering +2,146% increase in share price. So what drove this success? The answer is genome sequencing.
According to Francis de Souza, president of Illumina, over 228,000 human genomes have been completely sequenced by researchers around the globe so far. Illumina estimates that this number will double about every 12 months, reaching 1.6 million genomes by 2017. Illumina machines now account for more than 90 percent of all DNA data produced. The trend now is moving from a focus on cost reduction to a focus on usability, simplification, and speed.
At the end of 2014, Illumina held $1.3 billion in cash. It’s not a far stretch to think that Illumina may use some of these funds to acquire early stage companies that are complimenting their product offerings. One such company is Edico Genome.
