Fame is but a memory

Celera Corp. (NASDAQ:CRA), which was first to the finish line in the race to sequence the human genome, will be going out with a whimper barely a decade later when it is acquired by fellow diagnostic and pharmacogenetics company Quest Diagnostics Inc. (NYSE:DGX).

On paper, last week's deal price is $670.8 million in cash. But net of Celera's $327 million in cash, the transaction value is $344 million. This is less than 3% of the company's peak market cap of $13.1 billion in February 2000. It's also a fraction of the $983.3 million raised in a follow-on offering on March 1, 2000, which at the time was the largest biotech follow-on ever...