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Biotech / Medical : Visible Genetics Inc.(VGIN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Steve Lokness who wrote (196)	5/13/1998 6:53:00 PM
From: Richard Haugland	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 337

Most of the emphasis of PKN, and its Applied Biosystems Division, is in tool building. Consequently I personally don't feel that VGINF would be a good fit because it is directly in diagnostics and PKN probably does not know how to market this very effectively. I could see VGINF fitting much better with Roche or its Boehringer Mannheim component. As far as PKN acquiring companies is concerned, there is persistent rumor that it should acquire Molecular Dynamics to get its scanner business and chips but the two companies (partly through the relationship of Molecular Dynamics and Amersham) are suing each other in what appears to me to be a fairly bitter suit. Also PKN and Amersham are major competitors. Apparently PKN also owns 50% of Hyseq and I feel that further expansion into chips would be a natural progression for PKN. As far as who will benefit from the faster sequencing, I personally feel that humanity will be the biggest benefactor. #2 would be the U.S. government budget if this is done sooner and at lower cost than planned. Personally I don't care who owns the sequences as long as they are available at a reasonable cost and the sooner the better. PKN has said that they WILL charge for the information but "will make it freely available." At this time I don't own any VGINF, PKN, HYSQ or MDYN. I didn't like the earnings results (decreased sequential Q to Q revenues) or the financial package of VGINF announced last week so dumped at 8 to 8 1/2. You can see what that decision got me with VGINF up a dollar today on no reported news. I was expecting the stock to go down after earnings (as it did the day they were announced); instead it went out the roof the last few days. VGINF is still a good company with what I feel is a bright future at some time but I jumped ship and drowned. I also dumped my all my MDYN both before and after their earnings were out and in that case it was the right decision. Unfortunately I have been out of PKN for about 3-4 months but made money in it when I was in it. HYSQ had a big drop today but I am not betting on them. I like Affymetrix' prospects better. AFFX and HYSQ are also adversaries on patents.