NEW YORK – In 2023, GenomeWeb readers couldn't get enough news about Illumina as the company continued to push ahead with the integration of liquid biopsy company Grail, which it acquired in August 2021, despite sustained opposition from several fronts including regulators and shareholders. Illumina finished 2023 by announcing its intention to unwind the deal.
Against this backdrop, in June Illumina also announced multiple rounds of layoffs — as did many companies in the omics research tools and molecular diagnostics industries, with similar cutbacks at Thermo Fisher Scientific, Natera, Guardant Health, and Twist Bioscience attracting readers' attention.
Meanwhile, January's JP Morgan Healthcare Conference once again proved to be a premier newsmaking event as large numbers of GenomeWeb readers clicked through to read dispatches on executive presentations from multiple companies of interest. Readers can expect similar reports from the 2024 edition of the JPM Healthcare meeting starting next week.
Finally, one major acquisition particularly piqued readers' interest in 2024: Thermo Fisher's $3.1 billion October purchase of Swedish proteomics firm Olink.
Here are the 10 most-read stories on GenomeWeb from 2023:
1. Illumina Announces Multiple Rounds of Layoffs
2. Illumina Shareholders Vote out Board Chairman
3. Layoffs at Life Science, Dx Firms Continue as Thermo Fisher Scientific, Natera Shrink Payrolls
4. Illumina Shares Soar as Billionaire Investor Seeks Board Seats to End Grail Takeover 'Insanity'
5. JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, Day 1: Guardant Health, Exact Sciences, Bruker, 10x Genomics, More
6. US Federal Trade Commission Orders Illumina to Unwind Grail Acquisition
7. Guardant Health Lays off 7 Percent of Workforce
8. Twist Bioscience to Lay off 25 Percent of Employees Despite Record Revenues
9. JP Morgan Healthcare Conference, Day 2: Thermo Fisher, Agilent, Roche, Seer, More