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Alex Dickinson: Impact of Illumina’s going on the China blacklist and emerging competition

Alex Dickinson/LinkedIn

Feb 8, 2025, 17:21

Alex Dickinson: Impact of Illumina’s going on the China blacklist and emerging competition

Alex Dickinson, FemtoVox Incorporated, posted on LinkedIn:

“OMG today’s Illumina earnings call was BRUTAL.

Analysts focused on two things: impact of Illumina’s going on the China blacklist and emerging competition (Roche called out explicitly).

Illumina’s guidance was a no growth year – but that didn’t include any blacklist penalty. Analysts: ‘shit, growth could be -7%, I have questions!’

Alas Illumina’s Q and A strategy was: don’t answer questions. So when Doug Schenkel got his turn, he let them have it – and even threw in Francis and Roche:

‘So cutting to the chase, you’re not providing detail on China financials and I’m sure you understand that that creates yet another overhang for the stock. I recognize you inherited a lot of problems from the previous leadership team, but once you buy the house you own it, this is your company.’

‘It seems like every quarter there’s something new. First there’s pricing, then there’s mid-throughput. Now it’s China and in a couple of weeks we’ll get new announcements from ROCHE. You see what we see…do you feel comfortable and you can get back to mid-single-digit revenue growth?’

Jacob: […]

Tejas Savant piled on (glad someone is reading my posts):

‘On the competitive landscape there were a couple of high-profile wins here for one of your emerging competitors (Ultima Genomics), one with the UK Biobank for proteomics and the with Chan Zuckerberg Initiative for single-cell. Can you just share some color on what worked against you in those?

Jacob: […]

Tycho Peterson pinned Jacob down in a way I’ve never seen from an analyst:

‘Jacob I think you do have to address the last question about the UK Biobank. I understand your competitor effectively gave away that business, but there are a lot of these programs out there. The UK Biobank was a big one. How do you deal with a rational competitor in the market potentially that’s giving away instruments?’

Jacob:
‘As you’re also mentioning, yes, there are new competitors in the market. In the end, we also have an environment where competition and everyone has to eventually show that they can make money and we have shown that. I think it’s up to them that can also do that, otherwise eventually the bank will run dry.’ (Maybe? Ultima’s UKBB partner is Thermo Fisher Scientific)

And finally, this crazy banger from Sung Ji Nam:

On Stargate (and) Larry Ellison’s aspirations for personalized cancer vaccines and tumor gene sequencing (can you) comment on the opportunities for Illumina to take a proactive approach or role in this initiative to really help shape the that aspect of the project?’

Jacob, desperate for a win I guess, goes FULL GRAIL:

‘Yes indeed I think that’s a great example of the opportunity ahead and really shows the commitment to drive healthcare going forward and use new technology. As was also very evident genomics will play a huge role in the Stargate project and and I truly believe that Illumina is the natural partner for that so we’re excited about the opportunities ahead.'”