Incyte is growing more slowly, while Celera is booming but from a smaller base. Both companies noted that they boosted revenues despite slowdowns in spending from newer biotechnology company customers who must husband their cash now that the capital markets aren't throwing money at them. Those products include drugs, and Incyte's customers are almost all the major drug makers. Incyte's promised land is double-digit royalty revenues from approved and profitable drugs sold by other companies who spent the hundreds of millions to test and market them. Of course, Whitfield, who is refreshingly direct, says that this vision will only be validated when some of these drug candidates enter clinical trials.
None has yet, so any putative royalties are at least six to ten years away.
Maybe the paper towel analogy doesn't work, but the point is that Celera wants customer and investors to believe that while it wasn't first, its data is better and potentially greater. I don't know the answer, but the choice is clear. It's also possible that the drug makers will beat information producers Incyte and Celera through their ability to manufacture and market their drug products. My concern was that no responsible analyst should call any bioinformatics company a value of any kind. It doesn't matter what the reason was.