Troubled gene sequencing firm Illumina has announced a new strategy to accelerate growth. Under the leadership of CEO Jacob Thaysen, Illumina hopes to turn the page on a recent history marked by antitrust issues following its decision to acquire former spin-off company Grail.
Illumina’s ambitious new strategy comes after a four-year debacle over cancer diagnostics developer Grail. Having moved to acquire Grail, a former spinout, in 2020 for USD 7.1 billion, the company was beset with legal issues, as antitrust bodies in Europe and the US argued that the move could stifle innovation in the cancer testing market. Hefty fines followed, as did a shareholder revolt, sinking stock prices, and the subsequent resignation of former CEO Francis de Souza.
In June, the gene sequencing leader divested the problematic company while retaining a minority stake of 14.5 percent. Shortly afterwards Illumina won its court battle against the European Union’s investigation into the acquisition and was spared having to pay the originally ordered EUR 432 million fine.
After finally leaving its Grail troubles behind, Illumina is looking towards the future and last month announced a new growth strategy. Committing to delivering high single-digit revenue increases over the next three years, the company said it would also deliver double digit to teens non-GAAP diluted earnings per share growth between 2025-2027.
To fulfill these goals, Illumina is aiming for “new, scalable growth businesses that complement and accelerate its high-intensity, high-throughput sequencing franchise.” Namely, Illumina is focusing on workflow innovation it says will align with the evolving needs of its customers.
“Illumina built the foundation of the genomics industry, and we will continue leading innovation across total sequencing workflows to support the next phase of our customers’ success,” said CEO Thaysen. “Over the next three years, we will bring to market impressive new innovations that will redefine the genome and drive significant, deeper biological insights through multiomics.”
In a PharmaBoardroom interview following the announcement, Illumina’s SVP & GM of Greater China, Jenny Zheng, recognized the company’s recent financial pressures but confirmed its stability. “The foundation of the business remains strong, and our goal is to turn this trend around. This strategic pivot is critical for our future success in China and globally.”
Zheng also emphasized the importance of China within the new strategy. ”Our CEO Jacob Thaysen has outlined a bold vision for global expansion, where China plays a pivotal role despite geopolitical complexities,” she asserted. “Considering China’s status as the second-largest economy and its vast population of 1.4 billion, integrating it into our global strategy is not just logical but essential.”
Beyond setting out its plans for growth, and its own USD 1.3 billion spend on R&D in 2023, Illumina has been busy on the M&A and partnership front. Just as it let go of Grail, Illumina acquired Watertown, Massachusetts-based Fluent BioSciences in order to accelerate its single-cell analysis and multiomics research.
Illumina has also launched a new research partnership with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; signed an agreement with Janssen to collaborate on the development of Illumina’s novel molecular residual disease (MRD) assay, and expanded the Alliance for Genomic Discovery, adding Bristol Myers Squibb, GSK and Novo Nordisk to join AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bayer, and Merck, and co-fund the whole-genome sequencing (WGS) of 250,000 data samples.
