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It's Jacaranda season in Joburg and earnings season in New York, as you can tell from our recent daily newsletters. Another of our main holdings in US portfolios is genetic sequencing machine maker Illumina, and they were also out with good third quarter results after the bell on Wall Street.
Illumina has had some earnings related volatility lately and its share price has been all over the place, so I was pleased to see them deliver a solid beat. They reported Q3 adjusted earnings per share of $1.93 (consensus forecast was $1.40) and Q3 revenue of $907 million (consensus forecast was $871 million).
CEO Francis de Souza noted that the deal with Qiagen to deliver in vitro diagnostic tests was very promising. Third quarter shipments of Illumina's top-of-the-range NovaSeq machines were the second highest since launch, and included capacity expansion to support the UK Biobank initiative to sequence 450 000 whole genomes over the next few years. Consumables sales were very solid, and earnings guidance for the full year was raised. In addition, the pending acquisition of Pacific Biosciences is still on track.
Genetic medicine is still in the early stages of its development, and Illumina is core to the whole industry. This is still a good time to add this company to your portfolio, or buy some more.
