Jay Flatley
Analyst · JPMorgan
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. I'm very pleased with our results and our execution in the second quarter. We grew revenue by 36% over Q2 of last year while generating a record operating margin, also at 36%. We grew revenue sequentially, without the benefit of a large HiSeq backlog generated from the Genome Analyzer trade-in program. Year-over-year revenue growth was solid across both sequencing and microarray instrumentation and consumables. Through a combination of revenue growth, gross margin expansion and disciplined expense control, we generated another quarter of excellent leverage, increasing non-GAAP earnings per share by 46% over last year. Total Q2 microarray revenue grew over 10% year-over-year, driven by robust consumable and instrument sales. Sequential growth in total array revenue was driven by healthy consumable demand. Consumable strength was seen across our diverse array offerings, including whole genome, custom content and focus content arrays. In fact, we shipped more samples of GWAS arrays than in any other quarter in our history. Microarray instrumentation, while down sequentially, grew year-over-year due to strong shipments of HiScan and HiScanSQ systems. We recently began shipping the Omni5-Quad, a 4-sample BeadChip with the capacity to genotype up to 5 million markers per sample. The Omni5-Quad contains the industry's largest collection of rare variant content and the most even distribution of snips across the genome. In addition, this array allows the addition of custom content providing researchers the ability to economically fine-tune their array for the specific population or study. Overall, our outlook for the GWAS market remains cautiously positive. We expect to see the results of several proof of principle studies later this year. And we continue to believe that novel findings with rare variant content will renew demand for GWAS. During the quarter, we significantly ramped our manufacturing capacity for the Eco Real-time PCR instrument, more than doubling the number of units shipped. Strong demand for the Eco continues to be driven by the combination of performance features and market disruptive pricing. Turning now to sequencing, we had another outstanding quarter. Total sequencing revenue grew 53% over a year ago largely attributable to broad adoption of the HiSeq 2000. By simplifying the sequencing workflow, increasing accuracy and dramatically lowering cost, HiSeq is driving the global expansion of NexGen sequencing, unlocking new sources of funding from governments, universities and diagnostic labs. In fact, approximately 90% of HiSeq shipments and orders in Q2 were to customers outside the major genome centers. We added approximately 30 to 35 new sequencing customers during the quarter, which is consistent with our historical run rate. Total sequencing consumables grew by more than 50% compared to Q2 of last year. Q2 was a period of transition for sequencing consumables, as customers moved from v2 SBS kits to the latest v3 kits, which offer improved accuracy and a threefold improvement in throughput. Adoption of the v3 kits has been strong and we continue to believe demand for next-generation sequencing is very robust. We also recently launched new TruSeq Custom Enrichment kits that enable researchers to economically design panels that target genomic regions of interest. These kits leverage the same underlying assay design as our TruSeq Exome Enrichment kits and provide researchers with additional flexibility by allowing enrichment after the pooling of multiplex samples, rather than enriching each sample separately. Coupled with our design studio software, customers now have the complete solution for targeted resequencing on their Illumina machines. A component of our broad sequencing portfolio includes research focus, whole human genome sequencing through the Illumina Genome Network, or IGN. We recently announced the addition of the University of Washington to the network and several large contract wins, including an order from CRUK for up to 1,500 samples and 250 sample order for Knome. This market continues to show excellent elasticity. And as a result, we reduced prices to the network to $5,000 per genome for projects of 10 samples or more and $4,000 per projects of 50 samples or more. While IGN strategically serves a niche market, we continue to believe the service research market for whole genome sequencing will represent approximately 10% to 15% of the overall sequencing market over the next 2 years. Our continued technology advancements have allowed us to adjust our pricing for consumer-focused, Individual Genome Sequencing, making this program more broadly accessible. We're now offering a $7,500 program for patients with life-threatening disease for whole genome sequence information may provide their physician with critical tools for diagnosis or treatment. For cancer patients, we provide sequencing of the tumor and match normal control for a total price of $10,000. Typically, these patients had exhausted standard treatments and their physicians recommend sequencing to discover mutation pathways that are targeted by alternative to currently available drugs. This market opportunity is in its infancy and will accelerate as new therapies come to market and the analytical tools improve. I'm very excited to announce that we've began early access shipments of the MiSeq system. Our development program is on track. And we have full confidence that we will meet the design specifications of the system. Our early access program will go throughout August and into September with initial customer feedback expected in the next few weeks. The program is designed to exercise both our consumable and instrument manufacturing capabilities, as well as our commercial infrastructure. As a reminder, MiSeq uses the same SBS chemistry that's enabled researchers to generate over 1,700 publications, allowing HiSeq and MiSeq to complement each other in powerful and unique ways. The response to MiSeq has been extremely positive. We began taking orders in April, and we've now booked more than 135 systems. Customers have identified numerous applications where MiSeq offers distinct advantages, such as targeted resequencing, small whole genome sequencing, clinical and screening applications and QC and quantification for high-throughput labs. It's interesting to note that more than half the orders for MiSeq are from customers that are new to Illumina. From an operations perspective, we are on track to ship in volume in the fourth quarter. However, we expect to carry significant backlog in instruments for the next few quarters as we scale manufacturing to meet demand. During the quarter, we highlighted several applications that compared MiSeq to HiSeq, as well as the competitive platforms. These comparisons have consistently demonstrated MiSeq accuracy, rapid turnaround time and simplified workflow. With regard to funding, the global environment is somewhat uncertain. On one hand, we see some large incremental funding being proposed in Europe, but in the U.S., we have seen some funding discontinuities related to the 2011 continuing resolution, the stimulus program and uncertainty around the 2012 budget. Overall, we continue to believe that the funding allocations globally will further genetic analysis tools, in particular, next-generation sequencing. Our future growth will be fueled by our ability to continue our historic pattern of innovation. Our pipeline remains strong on the heels of some recent exciting product launches, including MiSeq, the v3 SBS kits, the Omni5-Quad and the TruSeq Custom Enrichment kits. In summary, Q2 was yet another strong quarter. We grew revenue 36% year-over-year and grew sequentially, without the benefit of a backlog associated with the Genome Analyzer trade-in program. We expanded gross margin, sequentially, to 69% and had record operating margins of 36%, while generating $71 million of cash flow from operations. Thank you for your time, and we'll now open the lines for questions.