Hank,
Oops! I listed INCY twice and I was meant to type LYNX. LYNX and MYGN are my two biggest positions in the sector along with TTP, UTHR, and GERN. MYGN has the best yeast two-hybrid system niche in the US and frankly speaking, this is still the best technique to probe protein-protein interaction. INCY does the best SNP job and if they can somehow wooo the scientist from Whitehead (MIT) and Stanford, they will be great. CRA's SNP data is pure crap because they are only looking at single patient and this is not what SNP is meant for. LYNX also has a tech niche in SNP detection area. I think that it's either that big boys use inflated biotech stock to gobble up these companies or they become little monsters themselves in the future.
I was amused at the big moves of HGSI because of their patent of a gene that was discovered 4 years ago and its function was detailed in Science and Nature journals 3 years ago. Their formidable task will be to overexpress and purify CCR5 receptor in functional active form. Numerous Nobel prize winners have tried tens of years to achieve this but all of them failed miserably. There is only one group, or to be more specifically, one scientist in America who has had some success in this area. However, both MRK and PFE, who has a GPCR research group, never offered the scientist a position.:(
At last, don't expect any progress in HIV study because of this patent. This CCR5 issue is old news in the scientific area and I am surprised that HGSI's PR made such a big deal about the help of recent progress in genomics database in the CCR5 research. This dude is lying, or at least cheating the amateurs.
good luck,
larry! |
