San Diego-based Illumina Inc. Tuesday reported first quarter net income of $373 million, or $2.52 per diluted share, compared to $90 million, or 60 cents per diluted share, in the same period last year.
The boost was the result of a $453 million stock repurchase by Grail, a company spun off by Illumina last year to enable cancer screening from a simple blood test.
Revenue of $598 million was up 5 percent compared to $572 million in the first quarter of 2016.
Francis deSouza, Illumina’s president and CEO, said the company is “witnessing an exciting uptake of the NovaSeq platform with more than 135 orders placed in (the first quarter), and look forward to the advancements in genomics this instrument will enable for years to come.”
Company officials unveiled NovaSeq in January and said they hope the product will drastically cut the cost of genome sequencing.
— City News Service