Investors Revive deCode Genetics

A consortium of investors have revived Icelandic biotech firm deCode Genetics as a private company with fresh financing after its parent company declared bankruptcy in November 2009. Saga Investments, which includes Polaris Ventures and Arch Venture Partners, bought the firm from its publicly held parent company, which has changed its name to DGI Resolution while it liquidates remaining assets. With Earl M. Collier Jr., former executive vice president at Genzyme, at the helm and deCode’s former CEO Kári Stefánsson as president of research, the new deCode will continue to sell diagnostic tests, offer personal genome scans, and provide a range of contract services. deCode was started in 1996 to tap into the homogeneity of the Icelandic population in order to determine the genetic underpinnings of disease. Although the company found endless “links” to diseases, it failed to translate those data into products.