To: Boplicity who wrote (898 ) 6/9/2000 2:51:00 PM From: allen menglin chen Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 13572
CRA ...[B] Celera CEO says genome announcement to come later this month By Mark Tarallo, BridgeNews Washington--June 7--Celera Genomics Group President J. Craig Venter said Wednesday that his company's announcement of a complete draft of the human genome will come later this month. Speaking to reporters after a Capitol Hill hearing, Venter said Tuesday's rumors of an announcement coming today were "completely made up." * * * Congress' Joint Economic Committee is sponsoring the High-Tech Summit, a hearing where prominent CEOs are testifying on trade and policy barriers they feel are hindering the growth of the new economy. At the hearing, Venter told the committee that better-than-expected progress led Celera to announce in April that it had completed the sequencing phase of decoding the human genome."We expect to announce that we have assembled all the raw data into a properly ordered sequence with full-length genes within the month of June," Venter told the committee. "Later this year we will publish the human genome." After the hearing, Venter told reporters that his company will likely make the official announcement on a Monday morning in June, before the market opens. It is also likely that the company would send out word of the Monday press conference the Friday before, after markets had closed. "It will be a Monday in June," Venter said of the announcement. Late Tuesday, rumors circulated on Wall Street that Celera was going to make the genome announcement Wednesday morning. Shares of Celera jumped $7, or 7.2%, Tuesday to close at $104 on the New York Stock Exchange. Venter denied those reports today. "That was completely made up by somebody in the British press," he said. "I don't know where that came from." During his testimony, Venter told the committee that the genome, when made available, will be a "very powerful" information tool that, among other things, could help individuals understand what illnesses they are genetically predisposed to so that action could be taken before disease sets in. "It is about creating a world where disease is a rarity, and medicine is preventative," he said. "...Hopefully out of this we'll have new blood tests for different types of cancer." End [Begin BridgeLinks] Mark Tarallo, BridgeNews, Tel: 202-220-3731 Send comments to equity@bridge.comboards.fool.com