Christian Henry, CEO, PacBio
0:00 Where is PacBio today?
6:50 Anything to say about the Illumina deal?
9:16 What’s your new vision for the company?
13:55 PacBio had been undersold
19:34 The killer app is whole genome sequencing in the clinic for rare disease
28:27 "We can decode the genome better than anyone else.”
33:40 How would you characterize this era of genomics?
At the beginning of the year, we were all holding our breath for the future of PacBio. And by all, I mean all. It seems everyone has been rooting for this sequencing technology company.
And why? It’s simple. Pretty much everyone is in agreement that they have the highest quality reads on the market.
So why was their future in question? This could have been asked of many famous companies at one time or another. Apple computer faced their dark days. Disney overcame initial failure. A company’s success in the market does not always align perfectly with the quality of their product. There are other variables.
PacBio at the end of this year is a different company. They have raised two rounds of financing. They have released their Sequel IIe, and they have a new CEO, Christian Henry. From August to November, their stock tripled in price. So what happened? And what is Christian’s new vision for the company?
The main takeaway today is that Christian believes in PacBio’s existing core story: long reads will take science, medicine, and the world to new heights. He thinks this story has been undersold and plans to change that.
