The post-genomic business model - sell yourself
This article was originally published in Scrip
Executive Summary
Since the fall in technology and biotechnology stocks following the bursting of the tech bubble, the business model associated with genomic information alone has been under question. Expectations were high when President Clinton and Prime Minister Blair gathered on the White House lawn to announce the completion of the sequencing of the human genome in June 2000. That event helped companies like Human Genome Sciences and Celera to raise $1.5 billion and $900 million, respectively, to further exploit their mining of the human genome. But the long-term commercial exploitation in what has been termed the post-genomic era, has been patchy and while Human Genome Sciences (HGS) had its blockbuster drug Benlysta approved by the FDA earlier this month, Celera at the other end of the spectrum recently announced its acquisition by Quest Diagnostics for $657m, following poor Q4 2010 financial results. Celera’s financial statements valued their cash and cash equivalents at December 25 2010 at $327m implying a low technology and other asset value of $330m.