CareDx Stock is Pure Play on Organ Transplant Diagnostics

You know those pop TV shows that ask burning questions like, “Where are they now?” Usually, the episode will pick some child star who flamed out early, spending the better part of their youth burning through rerun royalties with drugs and alcohol. Today, little Johnny Boy is three years sober and doing a podcast interviewing former cast members from his hit comedy show of two decades ago. In this article, we’re going to do something similar by revisiting a company that we wrote about in 2014 just before and shortly after it IPO’d. Eight years and one pandemic later, CareDx (CDNA) has grown annual revenues to $300 million for its portfolio of diagnostic tests for organ transplant patients. It has also been enmeshed in licensing disagreements, defamation lawsuits, and accusations of patent infringements along the way – as both plaintiff and defendant.  

That in itself is usually enough for risk-averse retail investors like ourselves to head in the other direction. But CareDx is showing significant growth as a leading player in molecular testing techniques, particularly in an area that leverages cell-free DNA (cfDNA), which has applications beyond organ transplant testing, such as prenatal screening for Down’s syndrome and similar genetic diseases. A few questions emerge: Is this a life sciences theme worth investing in? Is CareDx the pure-play leader in cfDNA diagnostics? Is this a them