John,
IMHO, there are many misconceptions and rampant misunderstanding of Celera, its direction, and its business model.
In my view, Celera's future in no way depends upon selling genomic data per se. In fact, they will soon make the entire human genome public, by publishing it in conjuntion with the Human Genome Project, and probably also by making it available on their website and/or public databases, as they have already done with other genomes.
Furthermore, Celera is not trying to patent genes. That's not where revenues come from presently, nor are they moving in that direction.
And finally, Celera's future does not directly depend upon discovering cures or treatments. Again, that is not the source of their revenues, and it is not their mission. That will be largely the job of others, who will utilize Celera's enormous and unparalleled resources for a fee. The exception here may be Diversa, which developed out of TIGR, and in which Craig Venter holds a major stake. That might turn out to be a very interesting story indeed, particularly in light of the relationship between Venter, TIGR, HGSI, and DVSA:
Message 13986939
Message 14023359
Regards,
Walkingshadow |
