After winning a brutal proxy battle led by activist investor Carl Icahn, Francis deSouza suddenly resigned as CEO and as a member of the board of Illumina Inc. over the weekend. The company appointed General Counsel Charles Dadswell to serve as the interim CEO while it evaluates internal and external candidates for the position. DeSouza will continue in an advisory role until July 31.
Pacific Biosciences of California Inc.’s technology could rapidly increase the number of rare diseases—and their causes—identified by sequencing. Researchers at Children’s Mercy Research Institute in Kansas City found four times as many rare coding structural variants using Pacbio’s highly accurate long reads (Hifi) sequencing than standard sequencing detected. Results of the study were published in Genetics in Medicine.
Two players in the gene sequencing space, Illumina and Pacific Biosciences, have scotched their planned $1.2 billion merger roughly two weeks after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) posted a 5-0 vote to seek an injunction against the merger. While Illumina is consequently liable for nearly $100 million in termination fees, it could recoup those monies under some circumstances. The $1.2 billion merger between Illumina Inc., of San Diego, and Pacific Biosciences of California Inc., was formally announced by the two companies in November 2018, but the deal faced substantial regulatory difficulty from the outset.