Last Week s Revenue Downgrade Sends Genaissance Stock Sliding 7.5 Percent

NEW YORK, Oct. 25 (GenomeWeb News) - Shares in Genaissance Pharmaceuticals slid more than 7 percent this afternoon as investors continued to punish the company for saying it planned to miss year-end revenue expectations.

Shares in the New Haven, Conn.-based pharmacogenomics company sank 7.5 percent, or $.17, to $2.09 in mid-afternoon trade on the Nasdaq exchange--9 cents shy of their 52-week low.

Wall Street took Genaissance to task for lowering by around 20 percent its year-end revenue expectations, to between $20 million and $21 million from $25 million. Genaissance announced the downgrade last week.

The company attributed the fall-off to a delay of certain anticipated contracts and samples associated with some of these contracts. "Our business is partly influenced by our customers' drug development timelines that can cause a delay in the timing of revenues," Kevin Rakin, Genaissance president and CEO, said in a statement last week. "Overall, we believe we can grow our revenue in 2005 in excess of 20 percent over 2004."

Recurring operating expenses for the second half of the year will be similar to those in the first half, adjusting for the second-quarter acquisition of Lark and other non-recurring charges, Genaissance said. The firm will announce its third-quarter earnings on Nov. 9.