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By Sidney P. Allen Financial Editor TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1974 48 tN C?l~E YOU ha~-e been rendered a mite cu- ious as the name Cetus has echoed from the hills of rkeiey to San Francisco's salons of ° high finance 4.nd on dov'rt to Stanford and Silicon Valley arenas, ihw shrouds of niystery hare now lii'tNCi. The Iate:i issue of Forttin(11r~,azi~rr litied'th~ veil. And nowDr. Peter Farley • a founder and' rice president of Cetus, agrees it's time to tell the u orlci about the Young Berkeley - based company. got off the ground about 21•, years dgo, pro- pelled by a founding group of five scientifically orient- ed men. The group: Dr. Farley, a physician and man- agement consultant to venture capitalists; his asso- eiate Ron Cape; professor Donald A. Glaser of UC- Berkeley, biologist; Dr. Calvin Ward, an associate of xlaser; 11oshP alafi. bio-physii•isi and venture capita- 9ist. ' lt has been financed to the tune of some S5 niil- lion, %ia private placements mostly arranged by A.E. Pouting of Blythe, Eastman Dillon & Co. It has a score or so of "oivners:" And, albng with its founders. it boasts some of the top nanies of science in the world. These incltade Stan- ford's Nobel prize geneticist Joshue Lederberg. (Glas- er is also a Nobel prize winner. ) Carl Djerassi and "'Pjandro Zaffaroni, chief execiitivN: of Zoecon ('oirp. Ci- 9 .alza Corqj: respecth-ely. That isn't all. But obviously it makes the point that Cetus surely has got the attentiun of r.uilcin.- e-N- pert% in tlte world of'biolot;iucl science. TS PLACE in the sun. as 17r. Farley exp latns the Cetus activities. is that it ha- devised the scientiti.• 1.ools and developed' a systeat t o•'a ut ioma t c the step• in -- " :miei~~uhio.lo;ieal re~earch. If that sounds simple enough. what it means Is' rhati Cetus can gt•eatly, accelerate the pruaess. be it a;~ ; quest for neir antibiotics or a quest for inlpro~-ing the } ield of antibiotic producing bugs. 2. The name of the game in such research, explained Dr. Farley, is numbers, or spinning the wheel t•aster, And to give an idea of the Cett>rs csipa.bilit~y: "We could now repeat iit two years evei~-thinc done by the phainnaceutical'industry in aU year Cetus can do this in its "little black bos"- a ; : ; ._~ building-size laboraroory of incubators, feeding con,. partments. analysis chambers. and batteiries of technr- 1" cal instruments. It's all prn!_-rammFr)1,\ ,rtmip»rerr anrl ~~ analyzed by computer. - -,, ..;. The little blacl: box is. of course, the Cetus secret. Patents on instrunuent'4 and system are on applicatinn. •; ~ * * W HEN RESEARCH that might take a good phar- maceutical company 10 years to accomplish can he telescoped into one year. clearlv it's replete uith dazzling commercial as wellias scientific applications. So the; pharmaceutical doers of the world are cuming to Berkeley in a steady stream now. That's the word. A couple of pharmaceutical' contracts (one with L'ohn are now in the Cetus house. and'others are just around the corner. ~ ~ . " Vithout any hu`e frontend capitalot V- cs. we can take a major role in~the microhiologiral research for the whole pharmaceutical industrn-," says Dr. Farle.•: That's done ocrcc+nt r•:wt And if and when the Cetu, %tiork le.'tds to better ne'<<•v antibiotic products. it can cut in -, ia royalties. ..XVe have the physmill machinet•x .,w": And ti'e ha\c° the t~NSt reHm of inrdrrstrial _,enotickts any- wher°e," "i\'e think CetuI: ii- to inducrrirl intcrnk~iolu;± a-Z the car!y c•omptrte.r was IC) 'iiAta proces~i+r_: .. * * *