Trends In Diagnostics 2011

In the 1967 movie classic The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman gets a one-word piece of career-planning advice from a family friend: “plastics.” In diagnostics, as it was last year, that word would have to be sequencing. But unlike last year, when the first item in our diagnostics trends piece cited the successful IPOs of next-generation sequencing companies Pacific Biosciences of California Inc. and Complete Genomics Inc., owing to the downturn in government funding and a slow economy, the tone in 2011 was more nuanced. [See Deal][See Deal] (SeeAlso see "Personalized Medicine In 2010: Welcome To The Establishment" - In Vivo, 1 January, 2011..) Share prices of sequencing market leaders Illumina Inc. and Life Technologies Corp. fell roughly 50% and 30%, respectively, in 2011. PacBio dropped more than 80% and Complete Genomics 60%, although the latter did manage to complete a secondary offering at $12.50 in June, more than 4x its current price.

More than a slowdown in instrument placements is affecting these instrument makers, however, and much of that spells good news...