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Let the chips fall where they may

Nature Biotechnology volume 21, page 129 (2003)Cite this article

By the end of 2000, investors knew that the DNA microarray market was no mere speculation, because Motorola (Schaumberg, IL; NYSE:MOT), Corning (New York; NYSE:GLW) and Agilent (Palo Alto, CA)—three advanced materials powerhouses with billions (pronounced beelyuns) in annual sales—all made large investments in the technology. No way were they allowing upstart firms like Affymetrix (Santa Clara, CA), Incyte Genomics (Palo Alto, CA; Nasdaq:INCY), or Hyseq (Sunnyvale, CA) to claim a projected $2 billion market unchallenged.

How fast things change in two years. Corning's telecommunications business entered a depression. As a result, it cut costs and biochips. Later last year, Motorola's pain led it to sell its non-core microarray business to life sciences Amersham (Chalfont St. Giles, UK; NYSE:AHM; LSE:AHM) for a mere $20 million. The mighty had fallen, but so had some of the small fry, who burned through cash while sources of new capital dried up. Incyte Genomics, too, exited the field.

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  1. Tom Jacobs
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Tom Jacobs, of the Internet site Motley Fool (), provides his angle on biotechnology investments. Read on and become “Foolishly” informed*. He can be contacted about biotechnology and investing at . Jacobs cannot give individual investment advice but welcomes any. He owns shares of Harvard Biosciences. The Motley Fool maintains an online real-money portfolio that had a short position in Affymetrix for four months in 2001.

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Jacobs, T. Let the chips fall where they may. Nat Biotechnol 21, 129 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0203-129

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