BioCentury
ARTICLE | Finance

The biotech economy

February 28, 2000 8:00 AM UTC

As Old Economy stocks tanked on the Big Board last week, Celera (CRA) demonstrated the new muscle of the biotech space in the New Economy. Stock of the genomics play split 2-1 before the week's trading opened on Tuesday and closed Friday at $250.875, up $92.969 (59 percent) on the week. Pre-split, the stock had most recently eclipsed the $250 barrier on Feb. 15. CRA still has outstanding a follow-on offering, 1.615 million shares not accounting for the split, announced when the split-adjusted price was $101.

Indeed, the sector shrugged off a brief bit of selling on Tuesday to add another 7 percent to the BioCentury 100 index on the week, pulled in another $1.4 billion in financing, and filed equity and debt offerings for $1.2 billion more...