Roche Axelios Launch
Roche have launched Axelios, but materially little appears to have changed since March. They are still talking about selling ~100 machines in the first year, which seems feasible.
They appear to be launching globally, and we’ve had pilots in America, Europe and Asia-Pacific1 suggesting the infrastructure is in place to do this.
Technically, this launch announcement is fairly meaningless, as it seems like they’ve been recognizing revenue already. But it sets the timer running on analyst and user expectations.
Even 100 instruments shipped in the first year (and perhaps more importantly, reasonable pull-through on reagents), will not generate meaningful revenue for Roche. But it may hurt Illumina, make the analysts happy, and increase user confidence.
The user confidence is likely the most critical factor for Roche. Really Roche need one of two things here: