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Biotech / Medical : DNA Medical Technologies (DNAT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jimmy Nicholson who wrote (16)	11/2/1998 12:03:00 PM
From: wonk	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 19

...DNA Medical is the brainchild of Don Washburn, a paving contractor from Iowa, whom Rivlin says he met through mutual friends. The company's intellectual gravitas comes from Kary B. Mullis, a member of the directors and winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize for chemistry. It was Mullis who patented the company's DNA extraction techniques, but he's equally renowned for his eccentricities, which include an affection for surfing and psychedelic drugs. Some geneticists, however, consider DNA Medical's gene storage concept to be as far-fetched as an "X-Files" plot gimmick. William Haseltine, chief executive of Human Genome Sciences in Rockville, called the concept "nutty" in an interview. "Genes are totally interchangeable," he said. "So there's no reason to stockpile your own genes. And there's nothing intrinsically better about young DNA as compared to old DNA." Peter Schad, the chief scientific officer of AlphaGene, a biotech company involved in gene discovery, added: "There's no technical validity to this, and no way it could work for any reason." ... ...Shares of DNA Medical, then called Questar, were trading on the over-the-counter market at about $1 per share in May. Then, during three days in early June, the stock shot up to nearly $4 on trading volume 10 times its average in the preceding weeks. The spike seemed mysterious until June 7, when the company announced that a Japanese outfit called Pax International Inc. had offered to buy 80 percent of the stock for a stunning $1.5 billion, or more than $20 per share. Rivlin surmises that the SEC wants to know if insiders were loading up on shares in anticipation of the Pax announcement. But the offer apparently smelled fishy to many investors for other reasons, which may explain why shares of DNA Medical are now trading at 32 cents. Some considered Pax's bid generous to the point of insanity, particularly given that DNA Medical still has little revenue. Also, it is unclear whether Pax can write a $1.5 billion check. As of March, according to a corporate information service in Japan, Pax's total assets stood at roughly $771,000. The company, located in a tiny suite of offices in Tokyo's nightclub district, is a privately held importer of survival blankets and water purification straws, according to Bloomberg News...... washingtonpost.com