Last year, we asked a big question in one of our year-end articles: Is It Finally Time To Dump Illumina Stock? The question came up following a series of management missteps punctuated by the failed acquisition of GRAIL, a liquid biopsy company, and an investor revolt led by Carl Icahn. The clincher for us as tech investors is the prolonged drought in revenue growth, because we remain big believers in the overall genomics sequencing investment theme. The field underpins so much of the innovation underway today in healthcare, from gene-editing to personalized medicine.
Earlier this month, at the 42nd Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference on Jan. 9, Illumina announced preliminary 2023 results. As expected, revenue was flat (technically down 2%) at $4.5 billion, marking the second year in a row of stalled growth. It’s also the second year in a row that the company has posted a loss. Investors greeted the news with little fanfare, probably waiting for juicier details to emerge when Illumina releases its full report next month.
While Illumina (
