Word: genentech
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...Emeryville, Calif., the product is the first genetically engineered vaccine approved for human use. "We're delighted that FDA has expressed such a positive view about the usefulness of recombinant technology for vaccines," said Stephen Sherwin, the director of clinical research in immunology at South San Francisco-based Genentech, a rival biotech company. "It's another example of the technology yielding real benefits," said Dr. Thomas White, vice president for research at Cetus, another Emeryville company. "The approval is good for the industry...
Laurence Lasky, a scientist at Genentech, Inc. of South San Francisco, announced that the firm has used genetic engineering to produce antibodies that neutralize the AIDS virus in a test tube. Lasky did not venture to guess if these antibodies can be formed in a human body, and the necessary tests could take months or years. To complicate matters, Robert Gallo of the National Cancer Institute reported that samples of virus isolated from the brains of AIDS victims inexplicably differ from the form of virus that commonly attacks the T cells of the immune system...
...most talked-about new schemes for persuading a prized employee to stay with a company is to lavish on the person something called junior stock. Conceived in 1979 by Genentech, the bioengineering firm, junior stock has been widely used by such firms as Tele-Video Systems and Amdahl, two computer companies, and Cetus, another bioengineering concern. The plan has been particularly popular in California's Silicon Valley, where firms need all the incentives they can find to keep the engineers and scientists from job hopping. Some 200 high-tech firms have either issued junior shares or considered doing...
Companies typically sell the junior shares to employees at 20% of the price of regular stock. Generally, the shares can be converted to common stock in three to five years if the company meets its goals for profits or sales. Genentech employees, for example, paid an average of $1.62 a share for junior stock that was worth $36.25 the day it became convertible...
...originally allowed Genentech's junior stock because, like other equities, it involved some risk on the employee's part. If the company failed to meet its performance goals, the employee would be forbidden to convert the junior stock to common shares. Thus the worker would make no money on the deal. But some firms set standards so low that their junior-stock plans became giveaways. Admits Palo Alto Attorney Lee Benton, a proponent of the stock: "Some companies took it further than it was ever intended...