Genset, a

biotechnology Biotechnology is the integration of natural sciences and engineering sciences in order to achieve the application of organisms, cells, parts thereof and molecular analogues for products and services. The term ''biotechnology'' was first used b ...

company, was established in 1989 in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

with

Pascal Brandys Pascal Brandys (born 30 November 1958, in Roanne) is a French engineer and entrepreneur. He is a graduate of the École Polytechnique and received his M.S. in Economic Systems from Stanford University in 1982. He began his career in venture capital ...

as its first president.

History

Genset was listed on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

and the Paris Bourse (now NYSE Euronext) in 1996.Genset Initial Public Offerin
Harvard Business School Case Study
Paul A. Gompers, Jeffrey Anapolsky Genset rapidly became the European

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the fi ...

company in the field of

genomics Genomics is an interdisciplinary field of biology focusing on the structure, function, evolution, mapping, and editing of genomes. A genome is an organism's complete set of DNA, including all of its genes as well as its hierarchical, three-dim ...

and became the second-largest biotechnology company in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

in 1999. At that time, the company reported identifiable assets of EUR 80.9 million and had subsidiaries in the United States, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. Genset was a pioneer in private human genome research. In 1994, Genset started the first large scale program to analyze the

regulatory sequence A regulatory sequence is a segment of a nucleic acid molecule which is capable of increasing or decreasing the expression of specific genes within an organism. Regulation of gene expression is an essential feature of all living organisms and vir ...

s of the human genome and in 1997 also initiated the construction of a map of

single nucleotide polymorphisms In genetics, a single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP ; plural SNPs ) is a germline substitution of a single nucleotide at a specific position in the genome. Although certain definitions require the substitution to be present in a sufficiently larg ...

as a tool to accelerate the

discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

genes In biology, the word gene (from , ; "...Wilhelm Johannsen coined the word gene to describe the Mendelian units of heredity..." meaning ''generation'' or ''birth'' or ''gender'') can have several different meanings. The Mendelian gene is a ba ...

associated with

diseases A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that ar ...

. The company also created the

business model A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, social, ...

of pharmacogenomics and started the first pharmacogenomics research program in the world in collaboration with

Abbott Laboratories Abbott Laboratories is an American multinational medical devices and health care company with headquarters in Abbott Park, Illinois, United States. The company was founded by Chicago physician Wallace Calvin Abbott in 1888 to formulate known dr ...

in 1997. After 2000 Genset changed its

strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art ...

to focus on drug development, leading to the departure of its president and other founders. The strategy shift proved unsuccessful and Genset was acquired by

Serono Serono was a biotechnology company headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. It was acquired by the German pharmaceutical company Merck in 2006. The company was founded as the Serono Pharmacological Institute by Cesare Serono in 1906 in Rome, Italy ...

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

in 2002, now part of

Merck Serono Merck Serono (EMD Serono in the United States and Canada) is a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Darmstadt, Germany, and a brand and division of Merck focused on biopharmaceuticals. In September 2006, Merck KGaA announced its intent to pu ...

. In 2006, Merck launched a takeover bid for Serono.{{Cite web , date=2006-09-22 , title=Merck s'empare du suisse Serono pour 10,6 milliards d'euros , url=https://www.lesechos.fr/2006/09/merck-sempare-du-suisse-serono-pour-106-milliards-deuros-592352 , access-date=2022-08-20 , website=Les Echos , language=fr

References

Biotechnology companies of France Pharmaceutical companies of France Pharmaceutical companies established in 1989 Companies listed on the Nasdaq Pharmaceutical companies disestablished in 2002 Biotechnology companies established in 1989 Biotechnology companies disestablished in 2002 Companies based in Paris French companies disestablished in 2002 French companies established in 1989