Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Biotech / Medical : VD's Model Portfolio & Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: scaram(o)uche who wrote (5717)	10/5/1998 6:09:00 PM
From: Rocketman	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9719

Sure hope this new INCY patent license is a work around to the AFFX/INCY lawsuit. Sounds like somebody either didn't do the due diligence or didn't want to meet the licensing terms or just didn't dig deep enough or???? My bet is that INCY and AFFX end up in a big cross licensing agreement and go away friendly to compete in different market niches. I've long thought though that even though AFFX was an early innovator that they took too cumbersome a process to achieve their product, and that they are encumbered by their Silicon Valley production techniques, building up the DNA probes on the chips one base at a time. In the meantime, Synteni did the obvious by just attaching the end of the probe which you made by conventional mol bio to the substrate. An analogy to me is that once upon a time DNA was synthesized one base pair at a time to make a very short limited length chain with lousy yields (the AFFX method) and then PCR came along and if you had a single copy of what you wanted you could make lots of it with PCR with great yields (the INCY/Synteni method) regardless of length. It has been shown in business studies by a prof I know of that the innovator (AFFX) is not usually the one to really profit by breakthrough technology, but that the copy cats are usually the ones to clean up by exploiting the path created by the innovator who had to invest more to get going and spend more to convince the investors, etc... that it was viable. Kind of like cross country skiing. It is more work to start the path through new snow than to follow the one created by the leader, and then you pass the leader at the finish line and win because you've got the energy left. Rman