GenapSys is the last company on my list presenting at JPMorgan Health this year, so they’re next on the list for updates. The rest (Oxford Nanopore, BGI, Roche/Genia/Stratos, Omniome, etc) can wait a bit, but I clearly need a deadline to get any writing done! 2020 Prediction Here's what I said: “I predict that...
PacBio 2020 Review and 2021 Predictions
2020 started pretty rough for PacBio with the Illumina acquisition being called off (albeit with a nice $98 cushion). Then the pandemic hit, forcing them to shut down for a while. Finally, mid-summer the CEO and CFO announced their retirements. My guess is they were all in on the merger and didn’t want to...
Illumina 2020 Review and 2021 Predictions
I like to procrastinate to the very last second, so here’s the initial entry of a review of my 2020 predictions and what I see for 2021. I’ll start off with Illumina because they’ll be presenting today at JPMorgan Health. I'll try to get to the others as quickly as I can. As far...
San Diego Life Science Companies Lead the Way in Local Fundraising
San Diego startups had a good quarter raising money, pulling in a near record amount of $1.26B (as reported in the San Diego Union Tribune). San Diego County startups pulled in $1.26 billion in the second quarter, the region’s largest single quarter of venture funding since at least 2014, according to the National...
2020 Sequencing Predictions
Here’s my take on what we might see in 2020 for the sequencing platform market. This isn’t specifically about JPM, but I wanted to get this out ahead of the conference since it’s obviously one of the main venues for “big announcements”. Illumina 1) Merger/long reads I was all prepared...
San Diego’s Launch Factory Takes a Turn Toward Biotech
The Launch Factory announced their first startup venture. Unlike a typical accelerator, the Launch Factory is sort of a “reverse” accelerator in that they come up with the startup idea and then search for entrepreneurs to execute the vision. It’s not a great model for most entrepreneurs, but it could be attractive for some....
Y-Combinator Is Making Significant Changes to Convertible SAFEs
Procopio has a nice article warning startup founders and investors about changes that are coming to SAFEs, the popular convertible investment device developed by Y-Combinator. While the standard terms of convertible notes have remained fairly constant over the years, Y-Combinator has recently made significant changes to their standard form of SAFE, recasting it as...
Illumina – PacBio Acquisition Poll
I'm running a quick poll to gauge the sequencing community's opinion about Illumina's proposed acquisition of PacBio. Just two simple questions. For the record, my answers are "yes" and "yes" (but I'm less confident about the second question). Check out my previous post to see my reasoning....
Illumina’s acquisition of PacBio no-brainer for FTC/CMA
About five minutes after Illumina announced their intention to acquire PacBio, my phone started ringing with market analysts, fund managers, and journalists all looking for the answer to one question: Will this merger pass anti-trust review? While I can’t say whether it WILL, I can emphatically say that it SHOULD. Read on to see...
San Diego Startup Week 2019
If you’re currently starting up your own company here in San Diego, or even just thinking about it, San Diego Startup Week, organized by Startup San Diego, should be high on your list. The annual non-profit startup meeting/workshop/networking event promises to be bigger and better than ever this year: San...