Science

Charges associated with the November 2008 purchase of Applied Biosystems brought our favorite Carlsbadistan-based life sciences company Life Technologies profits down to a quarterly loss of $106.9 million, according to a story on Genomeweb.com.

The Carlsbad, Calif.-based firm brought in total revenues of $540.6 million for the three-month period ended Dec. 31, compared to revenues of $336.4 million for Invitrogen alone in the 2007 fourth quarter. That tally fell short of analysts’ consensus estimate of revenues of $572.6 million for the quarter.

The stock opened today at $30.64 so it looks like everyone is pretty happy with the numbers anyway.

[Link: Genomeweb.com]

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Compared to the deals we’ve been used to from Life Technologies (formerly known as Invitrogen) their $20 million purchase of a Houston, Texas based VisiGen Biotechnologies isn’t all that impressive. But it could be huge for Life and for the business of DNA sequencing.

Primary founder Susan Hardin remains at the helm as president and CEO, while the other five co-founders have chosen to stay at the university. . . . VisiGen has been developing a brainchild of Hardin — a radically new method of sequencing DNA that could achieve the goal of sequencing a human genome in one day at a cost of $1,000. A genome is the genetic code in a person’s DNA.

According to a story in the Houston Business Journal the cost of sequencing the first DNA was $3 billion. So doing it for $1,000 would make it a little more widely accessible.

[Link: Houston Business Journal]

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Our favorite Carlsbad-based life sciences company Invitrogen is getting a new name. After the company’s $6.7 billion purchase of Applied Biosystems goes throught the new company will be called Life Technologies, according to a story on GenomeWeb News.

CEO Greg Lucier said in a memo sent to employees last night that the leadership teams of the two firms said that as they were “working together to define the identity and vision of our combined organization … one word became prominent in our discussions. That word was ‘life’ — a word that we believe truly symbolizes the promise of our combined company,” he wrote.

Sounds like a name straight out of a Philip K. Dick novel, but we like it.

[Link: GenomWeb Daily]

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The meeting we were planning on attending tomorrow at Invitrogen’s Carlsbadistan headquarters has been postponed until October 28 thanks to some amendments to their Applied Biosystems buyout agreement. The company wants to give shareholders more time to consider the deal.

Phew. There are a few details of the $6.4 billion buyout that we wanted to study up on. (Just kidding.)

[Link: Forbes.com]

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Our favorite Carslbad-based life sciences company, Invitrogen, has just introduced a new bench-top instrument called the Countess automated cell counter, according to a story in Pharmaceutical Business Review .

According to the company, the Countess instrument: counts live and dead cells, calculates percent viability, measures average cell size, calculates dilutions for downstream applications and uses just 10 microliters of sample.

As usual, we have no idea what they’re talking about, but if it’s good for their stock price then it’s fine by us.

[Link: Pharmaceutical Business Review]

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Joe Berry, the chief information officer of US Airways is leaving the company this month to become the senior vice president and chief information officer at Applied Biomedical/Invitrogen according to a story in USA Today.

Beery is just one of three “longtime executives” who are leaving the Tempe-based airline. It’s probably not a bad time to get out of the airline industry and move to Carlsbad, actually. Welcome, Mr. Berry. We hope you’ll leave the US Air stock mojo back with the old company.

[Link: USA Today]

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We’re marking our calendar. On October 16, 2008 Invitrogen (our favorite Carlsbad-based life sciences company) is holding a special meeting of its shareholders to vote on the company’s proposed acquisition of Applied Biosystems Inc.

The special meeting of shareholders will be held on October 16, 2008, at 9 a.m., PT at Invitrogen’s headquarters, 5781 Van Allen Way, Carlsbad, Calif. 92008. Invitrogen shareholders of record as of the close of business on September 5, 2008 will be entitled to vote at the special meeting.

We’re thinking me might go, just for fun. How many times have you voted on a $6.4 billion deal?

[Link: BusinessWire]

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