More Videos
- Dendreon Springs Back To Life
- A Lucky Friday The 13th For Merck
- Attention Genentech Employees: Heeeeere's Franz!
- Can Pfizer's Breakthrough Help Steve Jobs?
- Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Biotech
- The Genentech Roller Coaster
- Merck's Dick Clark: I Give Him A 41
- Are You From Jersey?! Big Pharma's From Jersey!
- Roche To Genentech: Deal Or No Deal?
- Merck's Jumpin' Januvia
- Farrell: G20 "Cornered"
- CNBC.com's All-Tournament Name Team
- Yoshikami: The $2,000,000,000,000 Credit Card
- Mad Mail: When Will RIMM Catch Apple?
- Lightning Round: Accenture, Freeport-McMoRan, Waste Management and More
- Lightning Round OT: AutoZone, Kinder Morgan and More
- Better Than Ramen Noodles
- Promise for Prostate Cancer Treatment?
- Bears Boohoo Market’s Rally
- New York Manufacturing Index Hits Record Low
- AIG Bonuses Spur Calls for Management Shakeup
- GM March Sales On Par With January, February
- Bernanke Sees US Recovery Beginning in 2010
- Plan for 'Toxic' Bank Assets Could Come This Week
- Feds Seek to Freeze Ruth Madoff's Assets: Report
- Monaco Backs Off Bank Secrecy
- Barclays Looking to Sell ETF Business
- HSBC Says No Need to Raise Further Cash
Text Size 
 |
CNBC.com Stem Cell Research |
The big biotechnology company, Genzyme[GENZ
Loading...
()
], which makes very expensive drugs for rare diseases and conditions, is going to pay Osiris Therapeutics[OSIR
Loading...
()
] as much as $1.4 billion over time if all goes well. According to Wikipedia, Osiris was an Egyptian lord of the dead and his green skin, in certain renderings, represents re-birth. I'm assuming that was part of the thinking at OSIR, which specializes in stem cells.
According to Osiris' PR guy, the company "is the furthest along in drug development for any stem cell company...." In an email, he offered up access to OSIR's CEO for an interview today. Even though the deal is sizable and involves one of the biggest biotechs in the world, the CEO of a $600 million company just ain't gonna break through on election day. This blog is the best they can hope for.
There are a handful of other baby biotechs, mostly microcaps, that play in the stem cell space. Geron[GERN
Loading...
()
], Stemcells Inc. [STEM
Loading...
()
]and Aastrom Biosciences[ASTM
Loading...
()
], just to name a few. Depending on who wins today, and maybe spurred by the GENZ-OSIR deal, perhaps their values will begin to grow.
For what it's worth, anecdotally, at 7:30 a.m. ET I had about a 15-minute wait at my voting precinct in northern New Jersey. In my eight years of voting in various elections there, this was the first time there was a line. As far as I could tell there were no problems with the computerized voting machine. My only complaint is that there was only one machine for an election that officials had to know was likely to draw an unusually large turnout. A friend in Jersey City, at last report, had been waiting for nearly two hours. And a co-worker who lives in the town next to mine says he spent one hour and 15 minutes at his polling place this morning.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes