Letter from the CEO

November 17, 2023

Dear Customers, Scientists, and Partners,

Every day NanoString’s scientists, R&D and manufacturing team members, and sales and customer experience representatives work to support customers in advancing  their scientific research to the next level. Having developed the industry’s most sophisticated spatial biology tools, we partner with researchers enabling them to find and deploy the right tools and instruments to forge their next breakthrough. We do this work for the benefit of scientific inquiry and promoting human health.

Unfortunately, not all life sciences companies approach the business of serving scientists with the same values. Our competitor 10x Genomics, a much larger company than NanoString, has deployed an aggressive litigation strategy in what we believe is an effort to shrink the research tools market for their advantage. 

10x has filed numerous patent infringement lawsuits against us and other smaller competitors. We view these cases as driven by a misguided business strategy to attempt to dominate the market to the detriment of scientists.

Case in point: 10x Genomics acquired patents from a defunct company for the purpose of generating litigation with NanoString. On November 17, a jury in the Delaware District Court issued a verdict against NanoString in a case involving these patents and our GeoMx Digital Spatial Profiler (DSP). In a complicated case, the jury found NanoString liable for patent infringement and awarded approximately $31.5 million in damages. We respectfully disagree with the verdict and we remain resolute in our belief that the patents that 10x Genomics has asserted describe a fundamentally different scientific method than that which is used for our GeoMx system. We will appeal. We firmly believe the asserted patents are invalid and that we do not infringe these patents.  

We have anticipated that there may be setbacks as the litigation proceeds, and we are prepared to persevere with our comprehensive legal strategy. Patent cases are complex and demanding for jurors unfamiliar with the technologies they are evaluating. Rulings are often overturned by higher courts. We are optimistic that we will be vindicated by the Court of Appeals.

We will continue to keep you up to date on this and other related cases. At the same time, our dedicated team will continue to work hard and focus on serving customers, so that science and future patients may be the true winners.