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Modest Gains for Stocks of Omics, MDx Firms in May; GenMark Jumps, Fluidigm Tumbles

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – Stocks for firms in the omics and molecular diagnostics market provided a mixed bag for the month of May as the GenomeWeb Daily News Index saw a gain of 2 percent month over month.

Leading the gainers for the month were GenMark Diagnostics (+23 percent), Veracyte (+19 percent), Illumina (+16 percent), and Hologic (+16 percent).

GenMark's shares jumped 12 percent during the last week of May, though there didn't appear to be any notable catalysts for the increase. The firm started the month off by reporting a 29 percent year-over-year decline in its first quarter revenues, though it beat Wall Street estimates.

Veracyte's shares bounced back after dropping 25 percent in April. The molecular cytology firm reported a 70 percent increase in first quarter sales early in the month while cutting its net loss.

Fluidigm led decliners in the GWDN Index for the month. Its stock fell 26 percent and followed a 15 percent decline in April. The firm reported a 77 percent jump in Q1 revenues in early May, but it also revised downward its estimates for revenues expected from DVS Sciences, a company it acquired for $207.5 million in January.

Myriad Genetics and Nanosphere also saw their stocks decline more than 20 percent for the month of May.

Nanosphere reported a 38 percent jump in its first quarter revenues, but it fell short of the consensus Wall Street estimates on the top and bottom lines.

Meanwhile, Myriad's shares dipped early in the month after it reported a 17 percent year-over-year increase in its revenues but said its oncology sales declined slightly due to a cut in Medicare reimbursement for its comprehensive BRACAnalysis test. Its stock fell again later in the month after Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and Amerigroup separately advised in-network providers to use only in-network laboratories for BRCA testing, a move that some investment analysts said could negatively impact Myriad.

The 2 percent gain for the GWDN Index compared to a roughly 1 percent increase for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a 3 percent gain for the Nasdaq, and a 4 percent increase for the Nasdaq Biotech Index month over month.

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