Illumina, Inc. ILMN has announced a series of updates to its NovaSeq X Series. The company’s single-flow-cell NovaSeq X Sequencing System is now available for the first time, alongside the software v1.3 upgrade to elevate sequencing performance and advance data quality.

In addition, the new NovaSeq X 25B 100 and 200-cycle kits are now available under Illumina's brand following the company's acquisition of Fluent.

ILMN Stock’s Likely Trend Following the News

After yesterday’s announcement, Illumina shares edged up 0.3%, closing at $139.08. The company is heavily investing in innovations to make the NovaSeq platform stronger and more versatile, supporting total workflows with flexible applications spanning genomics and multiomics. As a result, we anticipate that this development will positively boost market sentiment toward the ILMN stock.

Illumina presently has a market capitalization of $21.99 billion. The Zacks Consensus Estimate forecasts a staggering 377.9% earnings growth for the company in 2024. It has delivered an earnings beat of 432.8%, on average, in the trailing four quarters.

More on Illumina’s New Updates to NovaSeq X

The single-flow-cell NovaSeq X Sequencing System offers the same high-quality flow cells and speed as the NovaSeq X Plus Sequencing System — Illumina's most rapidly adopted and utilized high-throughput sequencing platform to date — at a more accessible cost for labs with lower volume.

The new Version 1.3 software provides laboratories with improved sequencing accuracy and higher yields to ensure dependable and precise results, even with challenging, low-diversity samples. The reduction in PhiX dependency also means more usable data per run, helping researchers maximize their throughput and confidence in their sequencing outputs.

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Furthermore, the latest 25B 100-cycle and 200-cycle kits for the NovaSeq X Series, which began shipping in December 2024, are optimized for counting applications and other assays at scale, offering shorter turnaround times and more cost-effective runs. By providing flexibility in run sizes and cycle counts, the 25B kits address the evolving needs of clinical specialty labs, academic core labs and service providers.

In addition, Illumina Single-Cell Prep, formerly Fluent PipSeq V, is now available and shipping to customers with broad compatibility across the NGS platform portfolio. The single-cell sample prep technology removes many of the barriers and limitations of current methods, enabling the scalability of experiments from hundreds to millions of cells with the same process and turnaround time. The new NovaSeq X 25B flow cell delivers exceptional performance while providing cost-efficient scaling to large numbers of cells for analysis.

Industry Prospects Favor Illumina

Per a Research report, the global sequencing market was valued at $15.04 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 22.2% by 2030. Some of the key factors fueling the market’s growth are growing demand for gene therapy, drug discovery and a significant increase in demand for consumer genomics in recent years.

Other Developments in Illumina

In November 2024, Illumina announced TruSight Oncology 500 v2 (TSO 500 v2), a new version of its flagship cancer research assay to enable comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP). The assay is currently under development, with a global release planned for mid 2025.

ILMN Stock Price Performance

In the past six months, ILMN shares have gained 30.4% against the industry’s decline of 7.3%.

Illumina’s Zacks Rank and Other Key Picks

Illumina currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Some other top-ranked stocks in the broader medical space are Penumbra PEN, Haemonetics HAE and Phibro Animal Health PAHC, each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 at present. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Penumbra shares have gained 2.9% in the past year. Estimates for the company’s 2024 earnings per share have remained constant at $2.81 in the past 30 days. PEN’s earnings beat estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed on one occasion, the average surprise being 10.54%. In the last reported quarter, it posted an earnings surprise of 23.19%.

Estimates for Haemonetics’ fiscal 2025 earnings per share have remained constant at $4.59 in the past 30 days. Shares of the company have dropped 6.6% in the past year against the industry’s growth of 8.1%. HAE’s earnings surpassed estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed in one, the average surprise being 2.82%. In the last reported quarter, it delivered an earnings surprise of 2.75%.

Estimates for Phibro Animal Health’s fiscal 2025 earnings per share have increased 1 cent to $1.62 in the past 30 days. Shares of the company have surged 83.8% in the past year compared with the industry’s 8.1% rise. PAHC’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 25.47%. In the last reported quarter, it delivered an earnings surprise of 52.17%.

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