Cooperation rather than competition was apparent in genomics at the beginning of October when Millennium Pharmaceuticals (Cambridge, MA) announced nonexclusive access agreements to two databases and genomic tools from Incyte Pharmaceuticals (Palo Alto, CA) and Lexicon Genetics (The Woodlands, TX). While Incyte's LifeSeq Gold database contains around 140,000 human genes, including 50,000 novel genes not available in the public domain, Lexicon's Human Gene Trap Database encompasses thousands of commonly and rarely expressed genes not represented in other databases. Millennium characterized the arrangement as a way of accelerating its access to the complete set of human genes without compromising the company's drug discovery and development efforts. Incyte sees the deal as a milestone in its efforts to sell database access to biotechnology companies as well as to larger companies. Incyte may need new clients as its genomic information becomes commoditized by public genome efforts. Analyst downgrades hit the company's stock price (down nearly 25% to near its yearly low value) at the beginning of October as an earning forecast showed that revenues were down despite the expansion of many of Incyte's database arrangements with large companies.