Illumina Inc The latest take over by Illumina, Inc. (ILMN) has been a company with advanced technology known as Fluent BioSciences, a developer of emerging and highly differentiated single-cell technology.   From Illumina Inc Informing the biotech world, Steven Barnard, chief technology officer of Illumina said, "The addition of Fluent BioSciences to Illumina will provide significant and new capabilities to . . . This content …

Illumina in the NEWS On March 21, 2024, we learned that the EU antitrust regulators suffered a blow as an adviser to Europe's top court said that they exceeded their powers when they blocked U.S. Illumina's (ILMN) $7.1 billion bid for merging with Grail.   In 2021,  the European Commission asserted a rarely used Article 22 to assess Illumina . . . This content is for …

Illumina Acquisition of GRAIL On September 21, 2020, Illumina and GRAIL Inc. announced that they entered into a definitive agreement under which Illumina will acquire GRAIL for cash and stock consideration of $8 billion, upon closing of the transaction. On March 31, 2021, Illumina announced that it disagrees with, and will oppose, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) challenge to its previously announced acquisition of GRAIL. Illumina …

QIAGEN and Inovio Pharmaceuticals Partnership QIAGEN (QGEN) and Inovio Pharmaceuticals (

Good News for Jazz, Celldex, Inventiva & Illumina Jazz Pharmaceuticals Good News Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ) announced along with its partner PharmaMar (MSE: PHM) that the U.S. FDA has approved Zepzelca™ (lurbinectedin) for adults with metastatic small cell lung cancer (SCLC) and disease progression on or after platinum-based chemotherapy.  Zepzelca was granted accelerated approval based on the overall response rate (ORR) and duration of response. <Continued approval for this indication may be contingent upon verification and …

Illumina Diagnostic Test COVIDSeq to Detect SARS-CoV-2 Illumina (ILMN) was issued an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA for the first COVID-19 diagnostic test utilizing next-generation sequence technology. The authorization was granted for the Illumina COVIDSeq Test for the qualitative detection of SARS-CoV-2 RNA from respiratory specimens collected from individuals suspected . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to subscribe …

Firstly, Forty-Seven and IVERIC bio  We remind that the two condemned stocks Forty-Seven (FTSV) and  IVERIC bio (

The Week in Review #46 The Quarterly Financial Results The quarterly financial results that analysts and investors relied on for years to evaluate biotech firms, including development stage firms, seem to change. Investors have finally realized that development-stage firms have no marketed drugs and no revenues, hence, no incomes and should be evaluated based on the clinical trial results of their pipeline products. They saw …

The Week in Review #44 Quarterly Financial Results What Was Seen and What Was Ignored History and self-experiences enabled investors to expect and swallow biased reactions following the announcements of the biotech sector’s firms’ quarterly results. Investors have long been expecting negative reactions towards small development-stage biotech firms following the announcement of their quarterly financial results. What they did not expect is for the same …

Regeneron Product REGN-EB3 Saving Lives Regeneron (REGN) announced that an independent monitoring board ended its investigational product REGN-EB3 trial after reviewing interim mortality data from 499 patients. REGN-EB3 was found superior to rival therapy from Mapp Biopharmaceuticals (MAPP) in saving the lives in . . . This content is for paid subscribers. Please click here to subscribe or here to log in.

Amgen Contrary to our expectations Amgen’s (AMGN) shares declined more than 10% in 2019, instead of rallying. Part of the decline followed the threat of devastating the large drug creators and developers by lowering the high prices of drugs. Amgen’s stock loss can also be attributed to the pressure exerted by negative investors on the stock.   Today, after . . . This content is for …

Illumina Stock Dropped Following Their Preliminary Revenue Announcement Illumina (ILMN) stock dropped 16% following the firm's announcement of preliminary revenue for the second quarter of the fiscal year 2019 and updated its 2019 revenue guidance. According to the firm’s press release its second quarter results were impacted by an approximately $30 million lower revenue than expected; associated with population genomics initiatives, including a sizeable sequencing . …

Prohost Letter #432 The ASCO 2019 Special Edition SPRAYING FEAR The Victims Are The most disturbed victim of the instigated and irrelevant fear against investing in the stock market is the market itself. Indeed, baseless fear campaigns frighten positive investors while encouraging short-selling investors to maximize their selling which intensifies the markets volatility. We have been experiencing this phenomenon since the beginning of 2019. Market …

What Everyone Wants to Hear from ASCO The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) meeting is ongoing. What the oncologists, the analysts, the researchers and investors and other interested observers are anxious to hear this year is mostly about the improvements in the immune-oncology approaches. The Oncologists Want to Hear About: Up-to-date information from clinical trials on immunotherapies in order to practice the safest and …

Prohost Letter #431 Genomes, Genes and Gene Therapies In this issue of the Prohost Letter we focus on genomes, genes and gene therapies. National DNA day is April 25th . On this day we commemorate: James Watson, Francis Crick, Maurice Wilkins, Rosalind Franklin and other of their collegues who published papers on the structure of DNA in 1953. It is an opportunity to celebrate the …

Yesterday, the Stock Market skyrocketed and with it a significant number of Prohost Picks that we keep reminding ourselves are undervalued. The outperformance unveiled the interred strength of firms such as: Illumina (ILMN), Amgen (AMGN) and Vertex (VRTX), the gene therapy firms: RegenxBio (RGNX) and Spark (ONCE), and the gene editing firms: Crispr (CRSP), Intellia (NTLA) and Editas (EDIT), as well as others in the Prohost Portfolio. The rebounding in the …

Illumina (ILMN) and Pacific Biosciences (PACB) announced they have signed an agreement for Illumina to acquire Pacific Biosciences at a price of $8.00 per Pacific Biosciences share, in an all-cash transaction. The agreement has already been approved by the board of directors of both firms. The acquisition complements Illumina’s sequencing solutions with accurate long-read sequencing capabilities to answer complex genomic questions. Why the acquisition? While Illumina’s accurate and economic short-read sequencing platforms address the …

The Week in Review #28 The approval of revolutionary products created by biotech firms with solid scientific fundamentals, superior scientists and advanced technologies is what motivates us to pick for investment biotech and biopharmaceutical firms. So, let’s see what has been approved in the parting week  from firms that we picked for investment.       IMPORTANT APPROVALS       Prohost Picked Firm     …

ProhostLetter #423 TOMORROW’S THERAPEUTICS TODAY For a more or less fair evaluation of biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms, analysts currently rely for their assessment on criteria that include quarterly financial results, products’ sales revenues, and year over year growth of each and every marketed therapeutic. When it comes to clinical-stage firms, the logic implies that these criteria cannot be relied on for evaluation, as most of …

When we reiterated that Illumina (ILMN) is the engine of the biotechnology evolution we meant it. We have to add, though, that the evolution made possible by Illumina’s sequencers and next-generation sequencing (NGS) engine is tremendously improving research and medical practice.  Regarding medical practice, the most recent news announced a global strategic partnership between Illumina and Loxo Oncology (LOXO) to co-develop and commercialize a multi-gene panel for broad tumor …