ILLUMINA
Illumina’s sequencing instruments. The company was founded in April of 1998 by David Walt, PhD of Tufts University and inventor of BeadArray technology; Larry Bock of the venture capitalist firm CW Group; John Stuelpnagel, DVM; Anthony Czarnik, PhD; and Mark Chee, PhD. In 1999, CEO Jay Flatley joined the company. When the company completed its initial public offering on July 1, 2000, it generated over US$100 million, signaling its success to come. The ensuing eight years after Illumina’s IPO marked numerous
Jay Flately, CEO notable moments, particularly with the development of new technologies, but not without setbacks. Illumina began as a 25-person startup that sold microarray chips— useful in examining spots on the genome for mutations—but as the genome sequencing market grew relatively fast, so did competition. The company began to lose money (for example, in 2003, Illumina had $28 million in revenue and a net loss of $27 million) and the potential for microarrays was starting to dim as more comprehensive sequencing technology began to improve, and quickly. Flatley knew that there was only one 9