SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549
FORM 8-K
Current Report Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of
the Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Date of Reports (Date of earliest event reported): June 16, 1998
Lynx Therapeutics, Inc.
(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)
Delaware 0-22570 94-3161073
(State or other jurisdiction of (Commission (I.R.S. Employer
incorporation or organization) File Number) Identification No.)
3832 Bay Center Place
Hayward, CA 94545
(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)
(510) 670-9300
(Registrant's telephone number, including area code)
Total number of pages: 5
Page 1 of 5
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Item 5. Other Events
The Company announced that it is setting up a new department whose
object is to identify up to 100,000 polymorphisms by early 1999. Details of this
announcement are more fully described in the Press Release filed and attached
hereto as Exhibit 99.1 and the Letter to Stockholders filed and attached hereto
as Exhibit 99.2.
(a) Exhibits
99.1 Press Release dated June 16, 1998.
99.2 Letter to Stockholders dated June 16, 1998
Signatures
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934,
the Registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the
undersigned hereunto duly authorized.
Lynx Therapeutics, Inc.
--------------------------------------------
(Registrant)
June 17, 1998 /S/ Edward C. Albini
- - -------------------- --------------------------------------------
(Date) Edward C. Albini
Chief Financial Officer
(Principal Financial and Accounting Officer)
Exhibit 99.1
NEWS FROM
LYNX THERAPEUTICS, INC.
3832 BAY CENTER PLACE, HAYWARD, CA 94545
Contacts: Sam Eletr, Ph.D.
Edward C. Albini
(510) 670-9300
LYNX TO USE NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR
POLYMORPHISM SEARCHES AND GENOTYPING
HAYWARD, CALIFORNIA, June 16, 1998 - Lynx Therapeutics, Inc. (Nasdaq: LYNX)
announced today, in a letter to its shareholders, that it is setting up a new
department whose object is to identify up to 100,000 polymorphisms (about 1 per
gene) by early 1999. (Polymorphisms are DNA sequence differences between
individuals. They may be used to compare groups of people with different
diseases or disease dispositions, to discover common regions of their genomes
which could then serve, either as diagnostic indicators, or as targets for
therapies).
The effort will be based on a proprietary, highly parallel process designed to
enable both the simultaneous comparison of very large numbers of fragments from
different genomes, and the retrieval of polymorphism-containing fragments,
without having to do any sequencing (other than for validation). Such parallel
scans of whole genomes are expected to provide Lynx with a much more direct path
to discovering disease-associated sequence differences. The process, in
addition, enables focusing on particular kinds of polymorphisms so that
subsequent assays of large numbers of patients for the differences can readily
be made using similar parallel techniques.
The Company is also developing a highly parallel genotyping method derived from
its proprietary "cloning on beads" technology. This proprietary technology is
designed to enable the simultaneous screening of very large numbers of
polymorphisms against whole individual genomes. The Company is in discussion
with several potential partners with whom to screen large population groups for
disease association or disease pre-disposition, or for pharmacogenomic
investigations.
According to Sam Eletr, Chairman and CEO of Lynx, "this is a significant
development that adds a new dimension to Lynx. While the new technologies have
great potential value to a number of companies, beginning to exploit them
immediately, on our own, makes good sense because of their power: we could well
discover and validate nearly half our targeted set of polymorphisms in the time
it would take us to negotiate and execute a potential partnership."
Formed in 1992, Lynx is currently focused on developing proprietary, highly
parallel technologies for the handling and characterization of DNA molecules and
fragments. It expects these technologies will contribute to a number of
applications including gene discovery, characterization of gene function,
identification of disease-associated genomic sequences, and the study of
non-human genomes such as commercially important plants and animals.
Statements included in this press release which are not historical in nature,
are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor"
provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company
cautions readers that forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks
and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from
those indicated in the forward-looking statements due to the risks and factors
identified from time to time in the Company's reports filed with the SEC,
including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1997.
Exhibit 99.2
June 16, 1998
Dear Stockholder:
As you know, Lynx's business is now focused exclusively on exploiting the
Company's proprietary, massively parallel technologies for the manipulation and
analysis of DNA. These are not only well protected by patents and technically
difficult to emulate, they are also extremely powerful. They can deal
simultaneously with 500,000 or more DNA molecules, cloning them and
automatically collecting the clones on as many microbeads for subsequent
simultaneous assaying. Such massively parallel assays of clones for various
applications have been, or are being, reduced to practice. One, for example,
enables sorting the beads (clones) according to various properties they might
share. Another enables simultaneous comparisons between sets of clones. And yet
another yields sequence information from each clone. All promise exciting
business opportunities for Lynx because they enable analyses that are either too
difficult or too onerous, if not impossible, to address by other methods. Since
pursuing them requires a revision of our earlier plans, and since the evolving
genetics and genomics landscape suggests even more opportunities for our
technologies, it seemed appropriate to review for you all these opportunities
together as well as their context.
The ability to sort clones of genes that share certain properties or satisfy
given criteria has recently been reduced to practice for two applications: the
first seeks to extract rarely expressed genes from the haystack of abundant
ones, while the second seeks to extract genes that are differentially expressed
between samples. The first of these is important because rare genes, not easily
accessible by current techniques, account for the still unidentified 20 to 30
percent or so of human genes. Their extraction and subsequent cloning and
sequencing would essentially complete existing data bases on which much research
and many gene chips are based. The second, of course, is important in functional
genomic studies. Other techniques will extract or identify genes differentially
expressed between samples only if they are already known or abundantly
expressed. They are thus inadequate in many cases, especially where rare human
tissues, or tissues from animal models are concerned. Lynx expects shortly to
begin such extractions for the account of existing and prospective partners.
Sequence information obtained in parallel from a large number of clones of
expressed genes may serve to quantify gene expression in a tissue or cell; it
may enable the assembly of genomic maps if the clones are genomic fragments;
and, finally, it may enable the assembly of genomic sequences. The first of
these helped attract our current partners, the second is the object of
partnering discussions aimed at mapping certain non-human genomes, and the third
will be discussed separately in a later paragraph. The past several months have
been devoted in part to constructing second generation machines able to sequence
cDNA and genomic DNA libraries. Two such instruments have been completed and are
being tested; another eight will be completed by the end of June. Barring the
unexpected, we hope to begin providing preliminary sequence data to our existing
and prospective partners sometime this summer.
Genome-based genetics is a young field where every advance increases demand for
yet others. Identification of 70 to 80 percent of human genes has whet the
appetite for the rest, as was mentioned above. Now that 3 to 5 percent of the
human genome have been sequenced, hunger for the rest has initiated a
controversial and very expensive race for the human genome between private and
public interests that will consume hundreds of millions dollars. Overlooked in
the debate over this race is that its object is not an end but a beginning. The
beginning of another race to sequence a multitude of individual genomes such as
yours and mine, and those of sick and healthy people of all possible races,
ethnicities and histories. For it is only by comparing such genomes that one may
hope to fully elucidate the genetic basis of disease and of disease
predisposition. But this will not be practical with current technologies that
exact a price tag of hundreds of millions of dollars for just one genome. That
is why other strategies are used for such (partial) comparisons of genomes until
new advances in technology further drive down the cost of genomic sequencing.
One such strategy has nurtured yet another race, the race for polymorphisms.
Polymorphisms are sequence differences between individuals, sometimes involving
as little as a single base change, which may be used to compare different groups
of people with different diseases or disease dispositions, to see if their
genomes share common regions. These could then serve either as diagnostic
indicators or as targets for therapies. Prodded by announcements that private
ventures expect to discover and patent large numbers of polymorphisms within two
to three years, publicly funded organizations have accelerated their own
searches for polymorphisms in order to place these in the public domain for use
by all. Either way the searches won't be easy as they are quite laborious with
existing technologies. They require sequencing genomic fragments from several
individuals until the same fragments from each can be found and compared. Many
repeated sequencing experiments are thus needed to obtain a set of
polymorphisms. With the human genome containing over 3,000,000 sequence
polymorphisms, it is not clear, without further experiments, which subset will
better uncover disease association.
<PAGE>
With Lynx's parallel technologies the task of identifying polymorphisms is much
simpler. Recent developments have shown that it is possible both to compare
simultaneously large numbers of fragments from different genomes, and to
retrieve those fragments containing polymorphisms, without doing any sequencing.
(Validating polymorphisms discovered in this way does require sequencing the
isolated fragments; but that amount of sequencing is small, only a few percent
of that required by methods based on conventional searches.) This capacity to
conduct parallel scans of whole genomes provides Lynx with a much more direct
path to disease-associated differences. In addition, it enables focusing on
particular kinds of sequence differences so that the subsequent assaying of
thousands of patients for the differences can readily be made using similar
parallel techniques.
Lynx has therefore launched, on June 1, a new program for polymorphism
identification. A new department is being formed to house this work and a new
Vice President will soon join the Company to organize and manage the search
program and subsequent sequence validations. This program will not just search
for random polymorphisms. It will include from the start a search for
disease-associated ones. The Company believes that its parallel technologies
will allow it to discover by early 1999 up to 100,000 sequence polymorphisms
(about 1 per gene) with less than a dozen technicians.
The ability to screen large polymorphism sets against individual genomes in
population groups is an increasingly important application. To this end, Lynx is
also developing a highly parallel genotyping method derived both from the
Company's proprietary "cloning on beads" technology and the parallel screening
technology described above. It is expected to enable the simultaneous screening
of a polymorphism set against a whole individual genome and, therefore, very
high throughput genotyping of population groups. The Company is in discussion
with several potential partners with whom fully to exploit these latest
applications of its technologies. Applications being discussed include screening
large population groups in search of disease association or disease
pre-disposition, as well as pharmacogenomic investigations.
Later, when the availability of the first generic human genome begins to fuel
the appetite for large comparative studies of genomes, its very availability
will also enable Lynx's massively parallel sequencing to feed that appetite.
That technology obtains sequences, simultaneously, from very large numbers of
genome fragments. Availability of a generic human genome will greatly simplify
the task of splicing together such fragmented sequences obtained from any other
human genome. It will also reduce the need for multiple fragmentations. Thus,
Lynx expects the genome's availability will open up for it the genomic
re-sequencing market. The Company is already planning for that market. A new
system capable of re-sequencing any variant genome in a few weeks (rather than
the few hundred instrument-weeks of the conventional technology) is now under
development. It should be ready within the two to three years projected for the
availability of the genome. If we are successful, Lynx could be one of the
first, if not the first, to benefit from this new field that will be built upon
the availability of the human genome.
The past months have been occupied by efforts to demonstrate the feasibilities
of the technologies mentioned above, and by efforts to understand their values
and potentials so as to better approach the appropriate markets or prospective
opportunities. This reassessment has given us the confidence to be more
aggressive in defining and choosing partnerships. We are, in particular,
extremely excited by the potential value of our new polymorphism identification
technology as we believe it could give us a clear edge over many others with far
greater resources. It is my hope that a similar communication to you, a few
months from now, will validate this claim with concrete results.
Sincerely,
/s/ Sam Eletr
Sam Eletr, Ph.D.
Chairman and CEO
Statements included in this press release which are not historical in nature,
are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor"
provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company
cautions readers that forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks
and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from
those indicated in the forward-looking statements, due to the risks and factors
identified from time to time in the Company's reports filed with the SEC,
including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1997.
