Ryan Dinse here. We’re getting closer to the big reveal of a new ‘step-change’ in genomics.
It’s a moon-shot project powered by blockchain that could send a clutch of unknown small and micro-sized biotechs hurtling into the stratosphere between now and 2022.
I have selected four stocks that I believe could potentially be the genomic trailblazers of the next decade.
These stocks have all the characteristics of being the direct decedents of Illumina (the primary spin-off stock from the Human Genome Project, which to date has returned early investors over 28,000%).
Today, Illumina is a $2 billion behemoth.
84% of its massive revenues come from gene sequencing.
But it wasn’t always like this.
Illumina began with a couple of Cambridge scientists having ‘creative discussions’ in a pub in the summer of 1997.
The company went public in 2000 — the year the first initial draft of the Human Genome project was complete.
The year the project was officially competed, you could have bought Illumina shares for under a buck.
And if only you did…
The first human genome cost nearly $2.7 billion to sequence.
In 2008 it cost $10,000.
From 2003, Illumina went on to single-handedly bring the price of sequencing a human genome down to $1,000.
They believe its newest machine, the NovaSeq, can bring the cost down to $100.
What would those shares be worth today if you bought this future genomic trailblazer for under one dollar?
ANSWER: $288-a-pop
I’m not telling you this story to taunt you.
Because I believe a new development in genomics is going to birth the next generation of Illuminas.
We begin showcasing my four personal selections early next week.
Until now, we have looked at the leaps forward taken in genomic medicine since the human genome was sequenced in 2003.
And the stocks — there were many more than just Illumina — that have benefited.
Today, I want to focus on a new ingredient that’s about to ‘collide’ with genomics.
If I’m right, it’s going to be a great disrupter.
Something that could turn the whole field of genomic medicine completely on its head for the SECOND time this century…
How cryptocurrency hype has masked the TRUE power and potential of blockchain
You will have heard about blockchain — the underlying architecture behind cryptocurrencies — already.
Perhaps more than you would have liked…
But what many people fail to understand is that the goal of blockchain technology is not simply to create currencies that governments can’t control.
Or faster transaction times.
Or transactions governments can’t monitor.
Or weird new ‘tokens’ you can bet on like horses and make a killing from.
If that was the goal, you could rightfully say it’s been failing miserably.
No, the revolution — brought about by Satoshi Nakamoto’s 2009 white paper on Bitcoin — was the creation of a new system.
A system that allowed true peer-to-peer transfer of any ‘asset’ without the need of a trusted middleman.
The asset in question was originally money. But now it could be anything.
It could be property. It could be shares.
But it also could be data.
And data is the key currency in both biotechnology and genomic research.
We are about to see a collision between these two fields and blockchain.
And, if I’m right, it’s going to be every bit as game-changing as the discovery of penicillin.
And every bit as lucrative as betting early on the spin-off stocks from the Human Genome Project.
Before I explain further, let’s look a little more at blockchain itself…
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It’s widely expected by many that blockchain is a big deal.
But it’s still early days.
Like the internet in the early-to-mid 1990s.
People recognise this as something different. Something that has the potential to change centuries of established norms.
They’re just not quite sure WHAT norms yet.
And what fields and industries blockchain could have the biggest disruptive impact on.
It’s already disrupting finance.
In a way that was always going to be the first cab off the blockchain rank.
What blockchain does is perform all manner of middle man functions — from auditors, to financiers, to trusts, to custodians — making them potentially redundant.
On top of that, for the first time, there’s now the potential of a new economic asset that isn’t under the control of that ultimate middle man in the economic system — the central banks.
It’s a complete monetary revolution on top of a technological advancement.
For years bitcoin stayed under the radar, as developers worked on the crucial technology to scale Satoshi’s original system.
It’s not that useful right now for day-to-day use.
But that’s a technological challenge, not a flaw in the revolutionary breakthrough of a decentralised system.
In the last few years, governments and big banks have woken up to the threat posed by this movement.
It’s a growing threat to their power.
And inevitably they’ve started to fight back. Make no mistake about it, their arsenal is deep and wide.
In their armoury they have bans, regulations, fines, even the threat of jail as a weapon at their disposal.
But they’ve also come around to the realisation that this alone won’t work.
They’ve realised that if they lose the technology battle, they’ll lose the war.
Anyway, here’s the point I want to really drill into you…
All of that is just a distraction, a sideshow, a red-herring when compared to how blockchain could REALLY alter the course of mankind…
When you see some tech wonks out there quoted as saying blockchain technology could be bigger than the Internet — or even bigger than electricity — it sounds very hyperbolic.
Especially when it’s very hard to get your head around what blockchain actually is.
But if you could see the research I’ve been doing over the course of the last year, you would probably have to reconsider that opinion.
Blockchain doesn’t just have the potential to improve an existing system.
It can radically alter the very nature of it.
At its heart is the control of data.
That sounds boring.
But I’ll return to my earlier point:
DATA is the lifeblood of both genomics and modern medicine.
What happens when blockchain combines with these fields?
Get ready.
Because you’re about to find out.
A huge genomic step-change is coming.
In fact, it quietly kicked off with the launch of a new genomic moon-shot project on 3 May, this year.
Over time, this step-change will create big losers. But it will also create HUGE winners (we look at four potential candidates next week).
This step-change is real. It’s coming.
And in the next decade, it could change the underlying infrastructure of patient care.
I think over time it could change the very foundations of the entire biotech industry.
And the fortunes for four very special — and, at the moment, very small and low-profile — ‘block-genomic’ stocks.
Until tomorrow…
Good investing,
Ryan Dinse