[math_guy]

Jay Flatley just sold $3.3 million worth of his personal stock at around $170 per share 2 days ago. That isn't a good sign, in my opinion.

Unless....and this is crazy...he is afraid of being too rich cuz he knows that Illumina is headed to the moon because of incremental improvements in their chemistry and software. Oh...and GRAIL.

Anyhow, I liquidated 80% of my remaining ILMN holdings yesterday and today. I may short the stock next week. But I need to see how the market reacts after this long weekend.

Is any of this related to this forum? Yes, I think so. For labs that are looking to partner with the right tech providers, they need to understand what is happening, financially, with their partners. If you are planning to buy a sequencer in the next 120 days....I basically feel sorry for you. Unless it is an Oxford. Or maybe a Sequel. I would say: just use a service provider and wait to see how the pipeline shakes out before investing in a machine. If you can't use a service provider cuz you think they may steal your data....then you're in the most trouble cuz you need the machine on-site.

Or...if you think I am an annoying contrarian indicator...then buy one.

[undergroundfacility]

I think the scale of the project will be an order of magnitude larger than anything else ever done with ctDNA. Only ILMN can do this because they're paying a fraction for sequencing of what their customers do.

ILMN should have the inside track to set up large scale population studies. Gather enough data to identify markers and weed out false positives that others cannot.

I have no idea if they will succeed, but I certainly see why they think they will be the ones to do it, if it's indeed possible.

[math_guy]

I think the scale of the project will be an order of magnitude larger than anything else ever done with ctDNA. Only ILMN can do this because they're paying a fraction for sequencing of what their customers do.

ILMN should have the inside track to set up large scale population studies. Gather enough data to identify markers and weed out false positives that others cannot.

I have no idea if they will succeed, but I certainly see why they think they will be the ones to do it, if it's indeed possible.

ILMN isn't the only company that can do this. The way I see it, as a non bio guy, is like this: the data is in the bloodstream; there MUST be another way to hone in on those markers without wasting resources on grabbing a ton of non-markers.

Hence, Illumina can't be the only one that can do this...according to the opinion of me.

As for a 10X increase in the funding...I think you are off by a bunch.I don't think much has been spent on it yet so a 10X increase wouldn't be much. And wouldn't be enough to make a dent, I feel.

A lot can happen between now and 2019, which is when they expect to have a solution. But I am wrong a lot.