The idea comes from Takara Shuzo, a brewery company that plans to turn its subsidiary, Dragon Genomics, into Asia's biggest gene-sequencing operation (see Nature 404, 913; 2000).

As sequencing becomes faster and cheaper, the growing number of projects require new ways of financing that do not rely on company or government funding. The investment model for Dragon will be designed to attract investors who are interested in a particular project.

Sequencing projects are planned for the chimpanzee, silkworm, tuna and whale genomes, as well as for certain seaweed and mushroom species thought to have medicinal value.

Shares in the projects should become available during 2001, and profits from licensing agreements following on from the projects' results will be split among investors.

Companies such as the computer-games maker Konami have used an investment model based on the funding of individual projects in the past. But Takara believes it is the first company to do this for biotechnology.

It has applied for a 'business method patent' in Japan to cover its model, and is considering similar applications in other countries. "Biotechnology is a very competitive field," explains a Takara representative, "and this is an era for patenting everything and anything."

Takara will set up a separate company to handle the distribution of information to pharmaceutical companies and other interested parties, and to distribute profits to investors. The company will run a web page where investors will be able to monitor the latest status of sequencing, patents and licensing agreements.

Dragon plans to start operations next spring, and to have 45 state-of- the-art sequencing machines up and running by the summer of 2002. Most of its work will be done on a contract basis for corporations and academic researchers that have "money, but little technological capacity", says Takara's representative.