Francis Desouza on global health surveillance
From Illumina CEO explains what scientists are studying to determine if Omicron variant is more transm… · · Face the Nation
“The UK specifically has been one of the leaders in terms of rolling out a global genomics epidemiological infrastructure so they have been doing surveillance since April of 2020. They were one of the first countries in the world to recognize the value of doing genomic sequencing of the positives identifying how the virus was mutating and so they started in April of 2020 and frankly not many other countries followed until December of 2020 when we started to see new variants emerge.”
On , Francis Desouza, Former President & Chief Executive Officer at Illumina, Inc., spoke about global health surveillance during Illumina CEO explains what scientists are studying to determine if Omicron variant is more transm… on Face the Nation.
About Francis Desouza
Francis deSouza, then CEO of Illumina, appeared on CNBC in December 2021 and January 2022 to discuss the company's role in COVID-19 genomic surveillance and its financial performance. In December 2021, deSouza stated that the U.S. had made progress in sequencing COVID-19 positives, reaching a national rate of five to ten percent in the prior three months, though he noted variability across states, with some sequencing 30 percent of positives and others only one percent. He described the Omicron variant as "surprisingly" heavily mutated, with over 50 new mutations, and said hypotheses for its emergence included chronic infection in an immunocompromised person, animal-to-human transmission, or circulation in an unsequenced population. He also said the U.K. had been a leader in genomic surveillance since April 2020, while most other countries did not follow until December 2020. In January 2022, deSouza said Illumina's 2021 revenue grew 39 percent over the previous year and that the company guided for 14 to 16 percent growth in 2022, which he described as "significantly ahead" of expectations. He attributed the growth to expanding reimbursement for genomic testing, noting that over one billion people worldwide had reimbursement for some form of genomic testing, with expectations to reach two billion in a few years. He also said that over 117 countries were using Illumina for COVID genomic surveillance, and that the company's Grail cancer detection test was signing up employers and healthcare providers.