"it's never been easy to turn a profit in biotech"
"Fame-courting biotech running short of cash" by Todd Wallack, Globe Staff | July 17, 2008
For the past decade, Advanced Cell Technology Inc. has claimed one spectacular success after another.
The Worcester biotech firm said it was the first to clone an endangered species, an Asian bovine. Executives said they pioneered research that could one day be used to reverse the aging process and grow replacement body parts. And ACT said it cloned the first human embryo, a discovery that sparked headlines worldwide.
But all the publicity likely backfired. Former chief executive Michael West was compared in news reports to famed circus promoter P.T. Barnum. Some scientists said some of ACT's claims were overstated. And a former ACT executive said the company's work in controversial areas such as stem cell research and cloning scared away pharmaceutical firms and life sciences investors that traditionally fund young promising biotech companies.
Now, ACT could be on the verge of shutting down. In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing Tuesday, the company warned that it doesn't have cash to continue operating after July 31 without raising additional money or drastically slashing operations. It reported $17 million in current liabilities, but only $1 million in cash and other current assets, an indication it could be forced to file for bankruptcy protection. And ACT's stock, which was as high as $8 per share three years ago, closed yesterday at 2.5 cents a share.
To be sure, it's never been easy to turn a profit in biotech. The Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development in Boston estimates it takes an average of $1.2 billion to develop a drug. Typically, much of that funding has come from pharmaceutical firms such as Pfizer and Novartis, which are hoping to find the next blockbuster medicine to fill their pipelines.
But this is our governor's big stake on the future!!!
He is just THROWING OUR MONEY AWAY to Big Pharma CORPORATIONS, folks!!
One of its most high profile claims came in late 2000, when ACT said it was the first biotechnology firm to clone an endangered species, creating a gaur named Noah at an Iowa research center. Gaurs, which come from southeast Asia, look like a cross between a common domestic cow and a water buffalo. And ACT said it had an agreement with the Spanish government to clone an extinct Spanish mountain goat called the burcardo, using cells taken from a dead animal, like something from the film "Jurassic Park." But the gaur died two days after birth from an infection, which ACT says was unrelated to the cloning. And ACT never cloned the goat.
You know what?
WE DON'T NEED CLONING, which I'm sure is going on out there somewhere.
--MORE--"
Also see: Massachusetts' Billion Dollar Boondoggle
