This is how it is in the hotbed of biotech investing: Sorrento Valley-based Sequenom Inc. (Nasdaq: SQNM) went public Feb. 1 at $26 a share. In two days, it quadrupled to $105; less than three weeks later at press time, the stock was $100.38. Market capitalization was $2.3 billion.

The evolution of biotech wunderkind Sequenom Inc. grew from the primordial soup of the biotechnology sector. Sequenom CEO and founder Hubert Koster was at the University of Hamburg when he started Germany's first biotech company in 1981. In 1987, he moved to Boston and started another biotech.

Seven years later, Koster launched Sequenom with nine employees, and Boston and Hamburg still figure as locations in the new company — Boston for systems and business development, Hamburg for systems, studies and marketing. San Diego is the manufacturing base and headquarters of the 100-employee company.

Investment interest is not new to Sequenom. The hybrid German-American company had attracted $17.8 million in German, Swiss and American venture capital two years ago.

With sales of just $306,000 and per-share earnings of negative $52.83 over the last 12 months, why would there be such investment? The answer is in the potential offered by the brave new world of cutting-edge biotechnology: Sequenom combines silicon circuits and genetic material to read the genetic profile of a sample — fast. The process can diagnose genetic conditions and infections in just minutes, and has applications in health, agriculture and livestock.

Its products began commercialization only in December, and users testing its viability include the National Institute of Health, the National Cancer Institute and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

— Terence J. Burke