Incyte: The long goodbye

In December 2001, Incyte Corp. began making the transition from a genomics database company to a company focused on therapeutic development. Last week, INCY finally announced that it is closing the Palo Alto, Calif., facility where the database group was located, and laying off the 257 employees who worked in this group. The move is expected to save $50 million in annual operating expenses.

For outsiders, the knee jerk response is: "What took you so long?" The company had first hinted three years ago that the sales potential was declining for its LifeSeq and ZooSeq genomics data product lines (see "Disappearing Act"). ...