Cathie Wood, CEO and investment lead of Ark Invest, loves her disruptive tech stocks. While a prominent aspect of Ark’s funds is made up of more traditional tech names, such as Tesla TSLA, the firm has snapped up plenty of shares in biotechnology companies over the years.
Ark bought a total of 268,772 shares of Pacific Biosciences PACB on Nov. 7. The bulk of this purchase was made by Ark’s Innovation ETF. The firm also purchased a total of 468,261 shares of Ginkgo Bioworks DNA and 13,596 shares of 10x Genomics TXG – Ark Innovation carried the bulk of these purchases as well.
After reaching a 52-week-high of $14.05 in July, PacBio’s stock has been on the decline. The company’s shares are down nearly 20% for the year, closing Nov. 7 at $6.88. Reporting third-quarter results in October, the company noted a net loss of 26 cents per share, below the loss of 34 cents per share it reported in the year-ago period. Also, the company reported revenue of $55.7 million for the quarter, a 72% year-over-year increase.
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"PacBio had another successful quarter as we continued to drive Revio adoption and exceeded $50 million in quarterly revenue for the first time in company history," Christian Henry, president and CEO of PacBio said in a statement at the time.
Analysts have rated the company a moderate buy. Also, according to its Piotroski F-Score, which rates a company’s financial health from 0-9, PacBio has a score of three. Ark Innovation’s holding in PacBio, worth just under $130 million, makes up 1.78% of the fund.
Ginkgo, which reports earnings after the bell Nov. 8, closed the previous session at $1.54 per share. The company’s stock is down 11% for the year. For 10x Genomics, its stock is up a little more than 3% for the year, and it closed the previous session at $39.02.
Since the summer of 2022, Wood has been purchasing biotech stocks en masse. In a 2021 interview with CNBC, Ark Invest analyst Simon Barnett said that Ark sees genomics as “one of the most transformative investment opportunities of the century.”
