Martek

Scientists at Columbia's Martek Biosciences Corp. have been researching microalgae for 10 years with no profits to show for it. But some Wall Street analysts now believe that's about to change.Led by demand for an infant formula additive that the company has developed, Martek's balance sheet should shift from a $10 million loss in 1996 to a $25 million profit in 1998, according to analysts with the Wall Street companies Salomon Bros. and Hambrecht & Quist who follow Martek.That would be no small accomplishment.

Martek Biosciences Corp., a Columbia-based maker of infant formula nutritional supplements, said Thursday it will pay $200 million for a consumer health and wellness product company that will for the first time give its products a direct pipeline to store shelves. Martek is buying Amerifit Brands Inc. from Charterhouse Group Inc., a New York-based private equity investment firm, in a deal that is being funded with $120 million in cash reserves and the rest through loans, the companies said.

Martek Biosciences Corp. stock will take off next week after the Columbia food-tech outfit reports fourth-quarter profits. I just don't know which way. The bears on this stock (one "sell" recommendation on Wall Street, one "strong sell") seem as contemptuous as one can be toward something that is not a politician. The bulls (two "buys" and a "strong buy") believe Martek and its patented nutritional oils have only begun to make money. Between them they have pushed and pulled the stock to a near-standstill, in the $28 range.

Martek Biosciences Corp., the Columbia company developing nutritional products from microalgae, adopted a "poison pill" plan yesterday to protect the company from hostile takeovers.Steve Dubin, Martek's chief financial officer, said the company is not a target of a hostile takeover and does not know of any potential takeover bid. The plan was adopted by Martek's board of directors, he said, so shareholders "would understand the long-term value of the company" and to protect them should a takeover attempt ever occur.

Martek Biosciences Corp., a Columbia biotechnology company, raised almost $14 million in an initial public offering yesterday, far less than the company had originally hoped.It was a victory nonetheless for a company with no earnings and a stock market tepid toward the biotech industry in general, according to analysts and industry executives."The fact that they got it done is pretty good," said Prudential Securities analyst Joseph Edelman."Actually we're quite pleased," said Martek Chief Financial Officer Steve Dubin.

Martek Corp. of Columbia has received $600,000 in three federal research grants to develop everything from amino acids for use in drug research to ways to include fat-fighting additives in such foods as margarine and salad dressing.The three grants came from the National Institutes of Health and are called small-business innovation research grants, said Henry "Pete" Linsert Jr., chairman of Martek, a small biotechnology company that is researching ways to make drugs and food additives from micro-algae.

Give $50 to Henry "Pete" Linsert Jr. and he will make your baby smarter.Sound like the pitch of a snake oil salesman? Some people think so.But if it's not, and Mr. Linsert is right, the eager 50-year-old former venture capitalist could be the chairman of a very big company some day.Mr. Linsert, president of a Columbia biotechnology company, Martek Corp., is promoting an ingredient -- Docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA -- that he thinks can make a difference in a child's intelligence when added to infant formula.

Martek Biosciences can claim that its nutritional supplement helps develop infant minds and eyes, makes breast cancer treatments more tolerable and might prevent cardiovascular disease in adults. What the Columbia company hasn't quite nailed down is a correlation between its DHA - a vegetarian version of an omega-3 fatty acid typically found in fish - and slowed progression of Alzheimer's disease, despite animal studies showing a possible relationship. But yesterday, an arm of the National Institutes of Health announced that it will use Martek's DHA in a $10.5 million, 400- patient study into whether DHA can help slow Alzheimer's.

Merck & Co., one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, said yesterday that it has decided to cancel an agreement with Columbia-based Martek Biosciences to screen its huge library of micro-algae for potential use in developing new drugs.Whitehouse Station, N.J.-based Merck has been screening Martek's micro-algae for compounds and properties that might lead to new products since September 1994. The agreement was to have lasted until the end of this year, but Merck said it decided to drop the research project in favor of other efforts.

The stock of Martek Biosciences Corp. fell slightly yesterday jTC after it briefly hit a 12-month high on the strength of an announcement Monday that the Columbia biotechnology company expects its infant formula additive to be approved next year for the U.S. market.In very heavy trading of nearly 69,000 shares, Martek's stock closed yesterday at $20 per share, down 37.5 cents from Monday's close.After the company's announcement, Martek's share price briefly hit a 12-month high of $21.25.Martek's stock has had a 142 percent return during the past year, a performance unmatched by many biotech industry giants, such as Amgen and Biogen.