Illumina Suspends Guidance; Shares Plunge (ILMN)

Shares of Illumina Inc. (NASDAQ: ILMN), a developer and manufacturer of life science tools and integrated systems for the analysis of genetic variation and function, are sinking in trading today after the company suspended its guidance for the full-year. The company also reported preliminary third-quarter revenue that fell well short of analysts’ estimates.

Illumina shares fell to a new 52-week low of $25.71 in trading today. At last check, the stock was down 31.66% to $27.29.

Illumina said that it estimates third-quarter revenue of approximately $235 million, well below analysts’ expectations. The company cited a number of reasons for weaker than expected third-quarter revenue.

Illumina said that its third-quarter revenue was hurt by continued uncertainty surrounding the levels of research funding in the U.S. and Europe, which resulted in purchasing delays for both instruments and consumables, particularly among large volume centers. The company also said that the launch of the V3 sequencing kits in the second quarter resulted in excess capacity that customers were not able to full utilize, resulting in a decline in the consumable revenue per instruments due to fewer runs.

Third-quarter revenue was also hurt by a significant drop in reagent usage of the company’s Genome Analyzer™ installed base. Also, lower than expected upgrades of Genome Analyzers to HiSeq™ 200 systems hurt third-quarter revenue.

Although the company expects fourth-quarter revenue to be higher than third quarter levels, it suspended the financial guidance for the full year 2011 due to many market uncertainties.

Jay Flatley, President and CEO of Illumina, said that clearly, the company is highly disappointed with its revenue for the third quarter. Flatley said that in the third quarter, the company saw what it believes to be an unprecedented slowdown in purchasing due to uncertainties in research funding and overall economic conditions, as well as temporary excess of sequencing capacity in the market.

Post Written By: Ed Liston Ed Liston is a senior contributing editor at TheStockMarketWatch.com. An active market watcher and investor, Ed guides an independent team of experienced analysts and writes for multiple stock trader publications. He is widely quoted in various financial publications on the Internet. When Ed is not writing about stocks, investing in stocks, talking about stocks, or otherwise doing something stock related, he likes to go sailing and fishing in his yacht.