Run silent, run deep

diaDexus LLC was announced with great fanfare in 1997 by founding companies SmithKline Beecham and Incyte Pharmaceuticals Inc., which promised that the new company would bring an unprecedented intensity to the development of molecular diagnostics and, ultimately, to pharmacogenomics. For the past two years, little had been heard from diaDexus until it resurfaced last week, $102 million richer following biotech's largest biotech venture financing.

However, the original challenge remains for diaDexus to prove that the diagnostics business holds therapeutic-like margins. Investors still are unlikely to get an answer to that question for another few years, as the company's first products will be in vitro diagnostics of the "homebrew" variety...