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Biotech / Medical : Oscient Pharmaceuticals Corp. (OSCI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (706)	3/16/2000 7:36:00 AM
From: Graham Dellaire	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1154

Yes, there is a lot of potential for patenting the specific diagnostic use of PCR markers that detect disease alleles. This already occurs for BRCA1 and BRCA2 (familial breast cancer genes). Looking for these alleles falls under SNP research (short for Small Nucleotide Polymorphisms, small changes in a gene that can be detected in some disease causing alleles). Companies actively going after this aspect of Genomics are Incyte, Hyseq and Affymetrix on the technology side (with hopes of selling markers to bigger companies). I am not sure whether GENE or HGSI etc. are going after these specifically, but if they find one, they will patent the diagnostic markers associated with those disease alleles. This is not patenting a gene, just the means of detecting it. Good points. Graham

To: nihil who wrote (706)	3/16/2000 7:45:00 AM
From: Graham Dellaire	Respond to of 1154

As far as valuation, I am glad that some reality has set in. I am fortunate enough to have both business and practical experience in biotechnology (I am a consultant for a private biotech company in addition to my duties as a medical researcher)so my investments are reserved for companies with good science AND profitability (or at least potential if they are very early in their development). I was really worried about the multiples being given to companies which have 5 or 10 year time horizons with respect to profitability. Most investors are too used to technology where product cycles are 12-18 months. Product cycles in a worst case scenario in biotechnology can be 10-20 YEARS! Things are building and in 5 years most of the companies that have good science coupled with ample cash reserves (enough to fund ongoing research and start clinical trials) will be making huge profits. One successful drug can make a company. Look at BioChem Pharma and 3TC (base analogue for HIV treatment) for example. Cheers, Graham