Cloning business proves defective

SAN FRANCISCO — "Genetic Savings and Clone is no longer providing interviews. We are no longer accepting orders."

Those recorded greetings appear an attempt by the Sausalito-Calif.-based company to inform the public it's closing its doors. Officials with the biotechnology firm that billed itself as the nation's leading provider of gene banking and pet cloning could not be reached for comment.

Yet former customers are reporting they've received letters citing Genetics Savings and Clone plans to close by 2007, due to a lack of business. The company, which recently dropped its cat cloning price tag from $50,000 to $32,000, also failed to streamline technology designed to make canine cloning a reality.

Company officials including Chief Executive Officer Lou Hawthorne could not be reached for comment. A company message refers customers interested in freezing their pets' genetic material to the Texas-based ViaGen Inc, which boasts "in-house, state-of-the-art laboratories for gene banking, cloning and genomics."