Cathie Wood drops $21.6 million on biotech stock

Cathie Wood isn’t a stranger to bold bets, but her latest move could be one of her most intriguing.

The ARK Invest founder splurged $21.6 million on a biotech looking to end what parents and doctors have long called the “newborn guessing game.”

Instead of waiting for symptoms to emerge or conducting screenings that don't reveal the full picture of potentially serious medical conditions in infants, this company is looking to replace that uncertainty with data.

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For Wood, who has made a living betting on controversial innovation, it’s the kind of moonshot that is right up her alley. The bet involves taking big risks, bigger potential rewards, and a chance to rewrite infant health as we know it.

This under-the-radar startup is using genomics to spot risks in infants before symptoms appear, and it just got Cathie Wood’s backing.

Image source: Flynn/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Why investors still follow Cathie Wood’s lead

Cathie Wood, founder, CEO, and CIO of ARK Invest, is arguably the most followed name on Wall Street and among the more polarizing investors.

She’s best known for leading the ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) , as well as a suite of thematic ETFs under the broader ARK Invest umbrella.

Her potent strategy focuses on “disruptive innovation” platforms covering areas like AI, DNA sequencing, robotics, energy storage, and blockchain. Unlike traditional portfolio managers, Wood isn’t one to shy away from risk, as she leans into volatility.

She put it best in a May 2021 interview with ETF Trends Director of Research Dave Nadig:

“We know disruptive innovation is controversial, so we know there’ll be another side to a move like that.”

Needless to say, her high-conviction style has paid off handsomely, particularly at the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, when ARKK surged 153%.

However, her strategy also cut deep in the down years, where the stock tanked 67% in 2022. Still, it rebounded 62% in 2023, up around 30% in 2025.

Also, a big part of what makes Wood’s moves so influential is transparency.

ARK emails its trades on a daily basis, offering retail investors and institutions alike a live window into its thinking. That open-source playbook develops and strengthens the community, while turning each investment into a testable thesis.

GeneDx lands $21.5 million investment from Cathie Wood’s ARK

Cathie Wood’s biggest buy on August 18 was GeneDx, scooping 170,471 shares at $21.5 million in a clear vote for the company’s push to end the newborn guessing game.

GeneDx is essentially a medical detective for babies, where doctors send a small blood sample, and it reads the baby’s entire DNA to catch rare genetic glitches that could cause seizures, breathing trouble, heart issues, or other problems.

In intensive-care units, GeneDx’s swift test can give answers within a couple of days, effectively stopping the guesswork so clinicians can start the right treatment quickly.

For GeneDx, the long-term prize is potentially making genome checkups the standard for every newborn.

Moreover, based on Columbia University/NewYork-Presbyterian’s GUARDIAN study (launched in 2022), the company’s total addressable market (TAM) is massive.

The study screens 100,000 babies for over 400 conditions, taking the potential market to every birth at 3.6 million to 3.7 million a year in the U.S. (130 million worldwide).

GeneDx's strong Q2 results and stock market gains

The fundamentals match the stock’s upward trajectory as well.

In Q2, GeneDx posted $102.7 million in sales and a 50-cent EPS, both comfortably beating consensus estimates, while raising full-year guidance in the process.

More importantly, GeneDx is running at an incredible 71% adjusted gross margin (Q2 2025), with FY25 guide at a superb 68% to 71%.

That strength is showing up in the tape as well.

GeneDx stock has surged over 60% YTD and over 280% last year. Also, despite its killer run, multiple analysts lifted targets post-print (example BTIG bumped the stock's price target to $125).

Cathie Wood tilts toward biotech, trims defense

Digging deeper into Cathie Wood’s ARK Invest ETFs and its daily trades on Monday, August 18, 2025, we see a clear shift toward biotech, along with a scale-back in defense holdings.

In total, ARK invested a handsome $46.2 million into genomic and gene-editing names, highlighting Wood’s long-term conviction in precision medicine.

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On the buy side, ARK focused its bets across key players in gene-editing and synthetic biology, which include:

Biotech Buys: