BofA/Merrill Lynch Upgrades Illumina (ILMN) to Buy

(Updated - January 10, 2017 7:16 AM EST)

BofA/Merrill Lynch upgraded Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) from Neutral to Buy with a price target of $175 (from $145).

Analyst Derik de Bruin comments "While we are bullish on NovaSeq and the boost it can provide for ILMN, we acknowledge that it is not likely to directly drive ILMN’s growth into the clinical oncology market, an area that has long been heralded as the ultimate prize in genomics. However, we view clinical genomics as a nascent field that still requires substantial market-building. To that end, the increasing prevalence of precision medicine and use of sequencing by pharmaceutical companies, large scale population studies (including GRAIL), and an emphasis on bioinformatics (such as yesterday’s announcements of collaborations between ILMN and Phillips, IBM Watson) are indicative of a number of “market building” approaches that are likely to accelerate with the launch of the NovaSeq, all while buoying a more robust revenue growth rate for ILMN until the clinical market matures."

For an analyst ratings summary and ratings history on Illumina click here. For more ratings news on Illumina click here.

Shares of Illumina closed at $141.54 yesterday.

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