Still working on an
deCode, the genetics startup that genotyped the entire population of Iceland and reconstructed the Book of Icelanders is going down
deCode files for US bankruptcy
assets are to be sold off and company may be liquidated.
This could get complicated - the database of icelandic genetic sequences is not a simple commercial property and I would expect the Icelandic government to intercede to prevents its sale.
This is also catastrophic for Icelandic PhDs - deCode employed a lot of bio researchers, many will probably seek to leave the country, other companies like prokaria will not be able to absorb the slack
- violating my principles and checking mbl . is, it turns out that Saga Investments is buying the root Icelandic company - "Íslensk Erfðagreining" and will provide operational capital for at least two years, sounds like they hope to keep on the 170 or so researchers and staff, in Iceland, or at least many of them.
Kári Stefánsson, the director, will be retained.
He notes in an interview that the corporate plan figured on 10-15 years for cash flow to become positive, based on the research timelines, and that they are 7-8 years into a number of promising lines of investigation - deCode's lines of credit for managing cash flow were through Lehman Bros., as so many other Icelandic Viking Corportations, and when Lehman went down it brought a lot of these ventures to a critical point.
it will be interesting to see how Delaware bankruptcy judges mesh with Icelandic privacy laws.
Saga Investments is basically a venture capital group filled with Kaupthing alumni.
Oh joy.
Life Science
