PSNL - Personalis Turns to Liquid Biopsies for Growth. Will It Work?
Building a genomics platform isn't easy. To gain insights into mysteries of biology, any "-omics" platform needs volumes of data that would have been impossible to obtain, let alone process, just a decade ago. But gaining access to the right biobank can make all the difference and significantly reduce the time to market.
Personalis (NASDAQ: PSNL) is a great example. The young company has intelligently navigated data obstacles by securing a series of contracts with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) to provide genomics tools for the Million Veteran Program (MVP).
On the one hand, the relationship has provided a massive data set for building the company's ambitious NeXT Platform. On the other hand, Personalis leaned on the VA for 76% of its first-half 2020 revenue. Can the launch of a new liquid-biopsy product finally diversify revenue and deliver growth for the small-cap stock?