Regular readers know that we don’t get distracted or unnerved by dropping stock prices. It’s natural to feel a bit panicky. You know how many of our article titles on gene-sequencing stocks last year were variations on: “XXX Stock Plummets: Why We’re Not Jumping to Our Death?” About 15% of our Nanalyze Disruptive Tech Portfolio is weighted in life sciences – and nearly all of that is linked to gene-sequencing stocks. If you’re in it for the long haul, you don’t bail unless you’ve lost faith in your investment thesis. We still believe genomics and gene-sequencing technologies will be key drivers in areas like precision medicine and longevity, especially in monitoring and treating diseases such as cancer.
The market leader in next-generation sequencing, Illumina (ILMN), has looked like anything but that with its failed GRAIL acquisition last year. A couple of competitors playing the long game with long-read sequencing (LRS) appear to be gaining traction. While we like Pacific Biosciences (PACB) – another failed Illumina acquisition – we ended up committing to Oxford Nanopore Technologies (ONT.L).