Illumina’s $3 billion problem

The nice thing about completely dominating a market is you don’t have to worry much about competition. The only downside is that if you want to actually grow your business, you can’t just beat your rivals; you have to expand the market.

That, as STAT’s Matthew Herper reports, is the quandary facing Illumina, the $43 billion company that has come to own the market for machines that read genetic code. This week, Illumina signed a 15-year deal with the diagnostics company Qiagen, an agreement that could expand the use of its banner technology. But the reaction from investors has been muted.

That’s because despite its more than $3 billion in annual revenue, Illumina seems to be reaching a plateau. The company has become synonymous with genomic analysis, but the demand for its services seems to have a limit.

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