News & Views item - May 2005

 

 

Celera Calls It Quits So Far as Making a Profit from Genomic Information Per Se. (May 5, 2005)

    The genome sequencing powerhouse, Celera, which under the guidance of Craig Venter, pushed the publicly funded human genome project to accelerate its sequencing of the 3 billion nucleotides that make up the human genome has announced that it will stop selling genomic information.

 

Craig Venter left the US National Institutes of Health in1998 and founded Celera with the goal of sequencing the whole of the human genome and commercialising access to the information together with specialised manipulation and analytical software. At one time Celera shares climbed to over US$270 only to fall to well under US$10.

 

 But with more and more genomic sequence data becoming publicly available as well as gaining in accuracy and the availability of sophisticated software, both free and commercial to allow molecular biologists to analyse and compare their data with that held in the public databases, Celera was left with no commercially viable niche from which to make a profit.

 

Venter left Celera a multimillionaire and in 2003, among other pursuits, launched a global expedition to obtain and study microbes from environments ranging from the world’s oceans to urban centres.

 

Celera as a name continues but has morphed into a drug discovery company. Whether or not it will be able to successfully compete with the giant pharmas is debatable.

 

Nature reports "the last of the genomic information service, called the Celera Discovery System, will close by the end of June. All Celera's genomic data, including more recent mouse and rat sequences, will be made available in the public databases of the US National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Maryland, in July."

 

 

   


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