Genetic Systems Corporation (GSC), a Seattle-based biotechnology company. was founded by a group of entrepreneurial microbiologists who teamed up with Syntex Corporation, a drug company, to manufacture and market tests for sexually transmitted diseases. The entitiy was organized around commercializing monoclonal antibody technology - a totally new technology at the time. Three years later, the partners formed another venture, Oncogen, to manufacture products for cancer treatment, and in 1985, Bristol-Myers was offered an opportunity to invest in the operation. A very young - but already leading-edge Genetic Systems Corporation was originally acquired for about $300M by Bristol Myers Squibb in Fall 1985 along the biotech firm's holding in the Oncogen joint venture with Syntex. In 1990 - for an undislosed sum - BMS sold to Sanofi the diagnostics portion of Genetic Systems. The young firm's leading product was an in vitro test for AIDS. It was suggested at the time that Genetic System would give Sanofi a much-desired foothold in the U.S. on which to build a U.S. presence. In the meantime, Bristol-Myers Squibb had set up Oncogen as an internal research subsidiary and spliced into it "all non-diagnostic research activities that were part of Genetic Systems." A Bristol-Myers Squibb press release notes that Oncogen "would remain an important part of the newly restructured Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute." Founded in 1980, The company was taken public in 1983
