Greg, Thought you were going on Vacation.. I bought GERN, Genron today for a longer term position....
.Celera, Geron Partner In Genetic Venture
Forbes.com
Celera, Geron Partner In Genetic Venture
By Matthew Herper
This is a story about beginnings. This week, biotech leader Celera Genomics Group, a division of PE, partnered with Geron to study the genetics behind the birth of human life.
The two companies are betting that Geron's (Nasdaq: GERN <http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=gern&d=t> - news <http://biz.yahoo.com/n/g/gern.html>) understanding of cells in the undeveloped fetus will help
Celera (NYSE: CRA <http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=cra&d=t> - news <http://biz.yahoo.com/n/c/cra.html>) decode a map of the human genome it should soon have. Together, they hope to profit from a market
for genetic information that is itself only being born.
The partnership is a big deal for tiny Geron, a Menlo Park, Calif Geron gets money and access to the work being done by Celera Genomics, among the most important biology being done in the world.
Vanguard biotech analyst Steve Broznak praises Geron to the rafters. He thinks that Celera's backing will help Geron become a major company. ``They're going to be a household name,'' he predicts.
When the partnership was announced Monday morning, both stocks jumped. The partnership with Geron gives Celera a perfect starting point for learning exactly what all that chemical code does. It will also
allow Geron to better understand an important type of cell that only it has isolated. Geron scientists were the first to isolate pluripotent human stem cells. Essentially, these are cells as they are in the human
embryo.
Right after a fertilized egg starts dividing, its cells are like most college freshmen: They haven't quite decided what they're going to be. Each of these stem cells will eventually choose to be a certain kind of cell
based on its location in the body. But until that choice is made, stem cells can become any kind of cell. All cells in the body stem from this original cell type, hence the name: stem cells.
Together, Celera and Geron aim to understand the genetic mechanisms underlying a stem cell's choice of career. This could lead to gene therapies and drugs that treat everything from cancer to developmental
disorders. But there are problems and it will take years for any such medical products to hit the market.
If Celera and Geron own a biological gold mine, they may also be sitting on a cultural land mine. There will be very valid fears and ethical objections to using any genome Celera decodes. And Geron is sitting
on a more volatile explosive: Its stem-cell lines were derived from embryonic tissue, which the company legally obtained from abortions and miscarriages. There might be public relations problems here that
make the current hubbub about genetically modified crops in Britain look like a tea party.
There is something fundamentally unsettling about the idea of understanding, and altering, the human genome. This is powerful technology, and fears about using it could make selling genetic information
difficult. Similarly, stem cells could be a powerful treatment, allowing doctors to replace damaged organs and even reverse the aging process. But there are consequences to such treatments, and the origin of
these stem cells is likely to bring even more vocal public objection.
Geron and particularly Celera may set the ceiling in an important new area of biotech. But investors who get in on the ground floor now may find that these particular elevators don't go all the way up. |
