Incyte Shares Tumble on Earnings Fears

Incyte Pharmaceuticals Inc. stock plummeted nearly 15% in heavy trading on concern that its future earnings will be eroded by a new genomics company that plans to give away gene-sequencing data. Palo Alto-based Incyte sells data to a score of drug companies from a proprietary database of human genes it has sequenced. Its stock fell $6.47 to close at $33.66 in trading on Nasdaq. Lehman Bros. downgraded the company’s stock to “neutral” from “outperform.” Genesis Merchant Group, a California brokerage, also lowered its rating on Incyte. Analysts said the company is likely to see its earnings growth slow in coming years because of the private company to be formed by Perkin-Elmer Corp. and the nonprofit Institute of Genomic Research in Rockville, Md. Perkin-Elmer has said the new company will complete sequencing of the human genome--the 70,000 or so genes found in the human population--within three years, and will make the information available to the public free of charge. Perkin-Elmer stock rose $4.25 to $72.75 on the NYSE.