UPDATE: Stifel Nicolaus Initiates Coverage on Illumina, Inc. at Buy, Announces $200.00 PT

In a report published Tuesday morning, Stifel analyst Miroslava Minkova initiated coverage on

with a Buy rating and $200 price target. Minkova cited the company's dominant position (>70%) in the Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) market (high potential for growth) and other drivers. Other favorable factors include a strong near-term and long-term growth outlook, when compared to other mid to large companies in the industry. NGS is slowly becoming the standard for use by genomic analysis applications, and expected industry growth could sustain the company's valuation. There should be more than $20 Billion in opportunities for the use of NGS in different niches in the healthcare industry, including diagnostics, prenatal screening, and immunogenetics: other factors in its valuation. The report also stated that, “Depending on the pace of NGS adoption in emerging diagnostic applications there could be significant upside to our outer year sales and EPS projections. Cancer diagnostics in the US could contribute ~$1.5-$2.0 Billion in revenues, by our calculations. High risk, prenatal testing globally could be another ~$1 Billion. Should these opportunities materialize, by 2018, ILMN's revenues could be significantly higher than the ~$3.2 Billion we currently project”.