The Scientist

A little under two years ago, Lou Hawthorne, CEO of Genetic Savings and Clone, linkurl:told me;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/15228/ that he hoped the pet cloning company would be profitable within two years, at which point it would consider an initial public offering. Apparently, they didn?t make it. News outlets reported last week that the company had sent letters to all of its clients announcing it would be closing by the end of the year. Clients could continue to bank their pets? DNA with a sister company, Austin, Texas-based Viagen. That service started in the hundreds of dollars when Genetic Savings and Clone was offering it. If they?re gone for good, I?ll miss the company, which I wrote several stories about starting in late 2004, when I saw their cloned linkurl:cats Tabouli and Baba Ghanoush;http://www.the-scientist.com/2004/10/25/12/1 on display at the annual New York Cat Show. The price then was $50,000 per cloned cat, but it was linkurl:lowered to $32,000;http://www.the-scientist.com/article/display/22604/ last year. I called Hawthorne to find out what?s going on, but only got his cell phone?s outgoing message, which said he was with ?Bio-Art.? I assume that has something to do with the Bio-Art and Research Corp ? better known as BARC, Genetic Savings and Clone?s predecessor. I?ll let you know if I hear back from him.