Concerns over patents, the anticipated regulatory oversight over complex tests, and reimbursement and evidence development characterized the continued upheaval in the diagnostics industry over the past year. However, genomics tools and technologies continue to be refined and introduced commercially, and companies with a sharp marketplace focus are showing they can still rise to the top.

Diagnostics industry trends include the increasing adoption of genomics in clinical testing and with it a focus on services and workflow more so than differentiated technology; a slowdown in M&A activity, partly to allow the digestion of assets acquired in 2010-11; and the ongoing uncertainties of regulation and reimbursement of high-value molecular tests.

Roche’s $5.7 billion hostile takeover offer for Illumina is opportunistic as well as strategic. It is a validation of Illumina’s long-term growth potential but also takes advantage of a depressed stock price due to the global economic slowdown and cutbacks in government funding that have hurt Illumina and other providers of gene sequencing instrumentation.