Can Two Toolkits Make a Sustainable Business?

Executive Summary

Things went downhill for population genetics company Gemini Genomics PLC after its IPO in July 2000, the most successful public offering of a UK company that year. Less than twelve months after raising $97 million on Nasdaq (where it hoped for greater visibility than from a London listing, given the paucity of UK genomics companies), the company has been bought by the German-American Sequenom Inc., in an all-paper deal worth about $224 million . Taking into account Gemini's net assets of $81.4 million, this values its technology at less than $150 million, a far cry from the company's $450 million market capitalization at its IPO.