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| Illumina CEO Jay Flatley |
Illumina ($ILMN) boosted its revenue 32% in 2014, riding high off the continued success of its next-generation sequencing systems and ramping up expectations for the coming year.
The San Diego, CA-based company reported $512 million in revenue for Q4 2014, up from $387 million during the previous year, and is projecting 20% revenue growth in 2015 with non-GAAP earnings per diluted share of $3.12 to $3.18. Net income for the quarter increased to $153 million from $81 million last year, numbers Illumina attributes mainly to its next-generation HiSeq X Ten system, which promises to deliver on the long-awaited $1,000 human genome, and its advances in sequencing technology.
"We delivered record fourth quarter and fiscal year 2014 financial results which greatly exceeded our expectations," CEO Jay Flatley said in a statement. "The recently announced HiSeq X Five, HiSeq 3000/4000 and NextSeq 500 instruments further enhance the most extensive sequencing portfolio available, and will position us for continued long-term growth as we develop and address the large and nascent market opportunities ahead of us."
Meanwhile, Illumina continues to forge ahead with new products and ink deals to expand its diagnostics footprint. In April 2014, the company launched its VeriSeq sequencing technology for the preimplantation screening of embryos to gain ground in a rapidly growing prenatal diagnostics market. Illumina last year also inked a deal with pharma heavyweights AstraZeneca ($AZN), Johnson & Johnson ($JNJ) and Sanofi ($SNY) to develop a universal companion diagnostic system for cancer which helps match patients with a suitable therapy.
In December, the company also put to rest an ongoing patent feud with archival Sequenom ($SQNM), agreeing to resolve all pending claims and pool its resources to develop noninvasive prenatal tests (NIPT). Under the agreement, Illumina said it would fork over $50 million upfront to Sequenom and would make ongoing payments to the company through 2020. But the Illumina's Verinata Health arm will also have exclusive worldwide rights to use the companies' pooled intellectual property to develop its in vitro prenatal diagnostic kits and to license its technology to outside labs creating their own prenatal tests.
Illumina opened trading at $208.74, up from $203.25 the previous day's close.
- read the release
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