The Rosetta Diaspora: Genetics Talent Stays Close to Home After Merck Shuts Down in Seattle

Luke Timmerman9/2/09Comments (3)Follow @ldtimmerman

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into in three main places here locally.

—The largest group of Rosetta alums, about 75 people from the Gene Expression Laboratory, are going to work now for Covance, the giant contract research organization (NYSE: CVD). The CEO of that Princeton, NJ-based company, Joe Herring, told me in an exclusive interview in late July that it will be “a shame” if Covance can’t double or triple the growth rate of Rosetta’s genetics service over the years, basically because it plans to offer the service to many more global drugmakers besides just Merck.

—About 20 people from Rosetta’s Biosoftware division have gone to work for Microsoft and Ceiba Solutions, to support Microsoft’s Health Solutions Group, as it beefs up its life sciences software offerings this year. Some of these workers have joined Cambridge, MA-based Ceiba, which is building more capability in Seattle, to provide support for the software, Bassett says.

—Another 15 people have joined Rosetta’s co-founder, Stephen Friend, at a fledgling international genomics nonprofit called Sage Bionetworks in Seattle. We broke the story in March that Friend had secured $5 million in committed donations to get this off the ground, and he recently provided an update about how he’s getting started at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Merck considered spinning off some of these operations into venture-backed companies, but ultimately chose to offload the biggest pieces of the Rosetta operation to Covance, Microsoft, and Sage, Bassett says. In all three cases, Merck is maintaining ongoing business relationships with the people who used to work at Rosetta, Bassett says.

How much this will benefit Seattle depends largely on whether Covance can live up to its CEO’s growth projections; whether Microsoft can convince biologists they need serious software upgrades; and whether lightning will strike a second time for Stephen Friend.

“This transition has been good for Merck and it can be good for Seattle through creating new opportunities for our former team members,” Bassett says.

Luke Timmerman is the National Biotech Editor of Xconomy, and the Editor of Xconomy Seattle. E-mail him at ltimmerman@xconomy.com or follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/ldtimmerman.