Steady start in the capital market, Novogene continues to be the forerunner of the gene industry
On April 13th, Novogene (688315) was successfully listed on SSE STAR Market, with an issue price of RMB 12.76 per stock. At the close of trading on April 19th, the share price was RMB 29.8 per stock, while the amount of increase reached 133.5%, the total value of the enterprise reached over RMB 10 billion. The successful listing in the science and technology innovation board, showed that Novogene had entered a new period, and started the next ten years’ development.
For the gene sequencing enterprises, the help from the capital market is the new power of continuous innovation, also the new start for the enterprises to develop and practice their missions. After a period of unordered development in the gene sequencing industry, the capital market has become more rational on the industry. When the amount of financing has decreased, the single sum of financing has kept increasing. It indicates that the investors prefer the enterprises with better growth prospects, the capital has obvious trend to flow to the top enterprises in the industry, while Novogene is one of them.
Capital helps enhance the enterprises’ “Moat”
Under the increasingly competitive environment, to maintain sustainable development capacity, the enterprises must fully dig potential and exploit the advantage of scale and technology, increase the ability and level of service, enhance the established “Moat”, and finally achieve the increase of overall competitiveness.
The prospectus announced that the funds raised by Novogene would be used on three projects, including expansion and upgrade of gene sequencing platform, research and development of gene detection reagent, and construction of informatization and data center. Among them, the expansion and upgrade of gene sequencing platform had the most proportion, which indicated that this project was the leading sign of Novogene’s superior technical strength. In recent years, with increasingly scale merit of gene sequencing platform, and double advantage of more stable sequencing quality and faster delivery cycle, Novogene has had continuous growth of overseas business, its over 4000 clients spread around 70 countries which covered six continents. As the demand of global clients continues to increase, Novogene has realized that with the help of the capital market, it should expand and upgrade current gene sequencing service platform. This is the inevitable choice to increase the comprehensive service capacity of enterprise, meet the higher demand of service quality and efficiency from the clients, and the increase the satisfaction from the clients.
Secondly, the clinical business of Novogene started in 2014, which was the extension arm of technology service business. Solid technology capacity and leading technical advantage are the necessary “foundation” of the clinical conversion of the enterprises. After 10 years’ effort, Novogene has established profound foundation, which covers basic scientific research, conversion research and clinical application. In recen years, as the IVD develops rapidly, Novogene has been actively developing gene detection reagent products, which include a series of tumor detection products and human genetic diseases polygene mutation detection products based on NGS gene sequencing. It indicatess that, part of the funds raised will be used on the project of gene detection reagent research and development. That shows the determination of Novogene in the exploration of the clinical application market, the coordinated development in multiple areas will become the core advantage of Novogene in the industry.
Thirdly, Novogene has significant advantage in the industry of bioinformatics analysis. The founder of Novogene, Dr. Li Ruiqiang, is the chief scientist of the development team of genome assemble software Soapdenovo, who has superior academic reputation. Under his guidance, Novogene has built a professional team of bioinformatics analysis experts, which help support the interpretation of gene sequence and analysis of omics data with the help of self-developed bioinformatics analysis software and database. In this fund raise Novogene also emphasized that it would continuously push forward the informatization and data center construction, which could help improve the running efficiency and data analysis capacity of the enterprise, effectively manage the accumulated biological gene sequencing data, dig the derived value of all types of data of the enterprise further, and make the data management and digging become the important part of the core competitiveness of the enterprise.
Follow the trend, and create new prospect
As the IPO succeeded, Dr. Li Ruiqiang also expounded the main direction of Novogene’s future development. First of all, as the foundation of the enterprise’s development, the technical service would be enhanced continuously in order to exploit the advantage of large scale, comprehensive types, professional team, stable process, fast cycle and cheap price. On the one hand, Novogene would expand the size of current laboratories, add new laboratories step by step, achieve localization in more countries, and maintain fast and stable AAGR. On the other hand, Novogene would innovate and perfect the system of technology and solution of gene sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, further expand multi-omics services including proteome, metabonomics and lipidomics. In addition, Novogene would continuously upgrade intelligent system, deploy laboratories all over the world, improve the quality, build a complete and effective global informatization operation matrix, and perfect the digitization operation.
Secondly, about the clinical detection market which has promising future, Novogene would fully take the core advantage of high-throughput sequencing technology system, and carry out the layout of early detection and screening of tumor based on the current accumulated technology about previous clinical research. Meanwhile, Novogene would also actively push forward the conversion of multiple areas including tumor, genetic diseases and pathogen, carry out the layout of multiple clinical detection areas, and fulfill the enterprise mission of protecting human health with gene technology.
As BCC Research estimated, by 2023, the scale of global gene sequencing market will reach 25 billion USD. As the global gene sequencing market becomes the blue oceans, with the boosting of the capital, the development of gene detection market will be more and more normalized. Novogene is now conforming to the trend with the help of the capital, preparing to create new protect for the next ten years, and bring a new era of innovation and development of the industry.
