Investors shrug off Illumina’s $200 genome

New machines, new chemistry, the ability to sequence an entire human genome for just $200, and Barack Obama in the audience… and it’s not enough. Illumina’s bombastic launch event yesterday, for a suite of new products including the high-end NovaSeq X Plus instrument and a long-read technology, left shareholders cold judging by the 4% fall in the group’s stock. This is despite the sellside largely viewing the developments positively, with SVB analysts saying that Illumina had delivered faster, cheaper and more accurate sequencing. They did however admit that interest in the company’s new long-read technology was “muted”, as this is seen as having read lengths well below the native long-read technologies produced by companies including Pacbio and Oxford Nanopore Technologies. Stifel said that, should Illumina be able to sequence a whole genome with high accuracy more cheaply than these other two groups, “it would be a massive win” – but no such evidence has yet emerged. The other factor investors are mulling is of course the acquisition of Grail, which Illumina closed without antitrust approval. The company is waiting to hear whether it will be forced to split Grail out again, and be fined for jumping the gun.