If You Invested $1,000 In BioNano Stock One Year Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Investors who have owned stocks in the last year have generally experienced some big gains. In fact, the SPDR S&P 500 SPY total return over the last 12 months is 37.1%. But there is no question some big-name stocks performed better than others along the way.

BioNano’s Big Run: One company that has been a home-run investment in the last year has been biotech stock BioNano Genomics Inc BNGO.

BioNano’s key technology is its Saphyr System, a cytogenetic testing device that detects structural deficiencies within a cell’s nucleus. The system then uses genome mapping for disease diagnosis.

While the FDA has not approved the Saphyr System for medical diagnostics in the U.S., researchers are free to use the technology and healthcare facilities outside the U.S. are experimenting with the system as well. In fact, the University Health Network's (UHN) Laboratory Medicine Program (LMP) in Toronto, the largest Canadian hospital diagnostics lab, announced in February it will be testing the Saphyr System.

The goal is to see whether the lab can improve the detection of cancer abnormalities at a potentially lower cost. Using the Saphyr System, the typical time it takes to collect the sample, analyze the sample and generate results is about three days, a potentially huge improvement over the seven to 10 days it takes using other cytogenic analysis methods.

Researchers recently found that Saphyr was just as accurate as other cytogenic analysis tests in identifying constitutional diseases caused by genetic abnormalities, a promising sign for BioNano.

At this point, Saphyr is potentially still in its infancy in terms of growth. BioNano has projected it will have just 150 installed systems by the end of 2021.

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At the beginning of 2020, BioNano shares were trading at just $1.32. By the beginning of March, the stock was down to $1.08 as news of the coronavirus spreading in China prompted concerns about a U.S. pandemic.

When the market crashed during the U.S. pandemic outbreak in March, BioNano shares dropped as low as 25 cents during the height of the pandemic fears.

Fortunately, when the market bounced in late March 2020, BioNano began to rebound as well. In fact, the stock made it back above $1 by July.

BioNano shares jumped 40% on Dec. 23 after the company published the results of a study demonstrating the superiority of its optical mapping technology for detecting large structural variations (SVs) in de novo sequencing data.

BioNano In 2021, Beyond: Optimism about Saphyr coupled with the extreme move off the study news soon got the attention of Reddit’s WallStreetBets community. A short squeeze sent BioNano shares skyrocketing as high as $15.69 in February 2021. The stock has since cooled off, dropping back down to $5.52

Today, the stock has a $1.6 billion market cap despite just $8.5 million in 2020 revenue.

Still, BioNano investors who bought one year ago and held on have generated a huge return on their investment. In fact, $1,000 in BioNano stock bought on Sept. 9, 2020, would be worth about $11,020 today.

Looking ahead, analysts are optimistic Saphyr will provide even more gains for BioNano bulls. The average price target among the four analysts covering the stock is $11, suggesting 98.9% upside from current levels.