IT SAYS:
Visible Genetics Seeks Partner; Company Sale Possible (Update2) (Closes stock price.)
Toronto, June 23 (Bloomberg) -- Visible Genetics Inc. has held talks with at least four bigger companies over the past month to find a marketing partner. Those discussions could result in the sale of the company, the company's chairman said.
Visible Genetics Chairman John Stevens said he's met with senior executives at companies including Abbott Laboratories, Roche Holding AG, Chiron Corp. and Bayer AG over the past month in a bid to find a partner to help his money-losing company sell kits that help AIDS doctors figure out which drugs will best work on particular AIDS patients. ''In some cases, it's a partnership deal, in some cases it's a potential bond beyond a partnership,'' Stevens said in an interview.
Visible Genetics shares rose 7/8 to 17 7/8 in trading of 92,100, more than twice the three-month daily average.
The goal of the talks is to find a partner that will give Toronto-based Visible Genetics the financial resources, expertise and infrastructure to market the HIV genotyping tests, Stevens said. It's possible that the best way to meet those goals would be to sell the company, he said. ''My company right now is overwhelmed with opportunity,'' he said. ''It's very difficult to grow as fast as we'd like to grow, so we're obviously going to discuss all possible opportunities with large companies.''
Competition
Visible Genetics is one of several companies looking to meet a growing need to help doctors identify which HIV drugs will best work on patients as resistance to AIDs drugs becomes increasingly prevalent.
Demand for such tests is likely to rise as researchers find that an increasing percentage of patients are resistant to certain AIDS drugs when they are first diagnosed as being HIV positive.
Researchers are discussing the problem at a closed-door medical meeting that begins today in southern California. The results of that conference will be disclosed on July 1 at a symposium in New York.
Virologic Inc., a closely held company based in South San Francisco, California, today said it introduced a similar test based on technology different from that used in the experimental Visible Genetics test.
Virologic said its product provides results in two weeks, faster than the four-to-six weeks it now takes to get test results. Visible Genetics, which has yet to complete its marketing application with the Food and Drug Administration, said its test provides results in one week.
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