8-K

                       SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
                             WASHINGTON, D.C. 20549




                                    FORM 8-K



                Current Report Pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d) of
                       the Securities Exchange Act of 1934



        Date of Reports (Date of earliest event reported): June 16, 1998




                             Lynx Therapeutics, Inc.
             (Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)





          Delaware                          0-22570              94-3161073
(State or other jurisdiction of           (Commission         (I.R.S. Employer
incorporation or organization)            File Number)       Identification No.)


       3832 Bay Center Place
             Hayward, CA                                                94545
(Address of principal executive offices)                              (Zip Code)


                                 (510) 670-9300
              (Registrant's telephone number, including area code)


                                                        Total number of pages: 5
                                                                     Page 1 of 5



Item 5. Other Events

         The  Company  announced  that it is setting up a new  department  whose
object is to identify up to 100,000 polymorphisms by early 1999. Details of this
announcement  are more fully  described in the Press  Release filed and attached
hereto as Exhibit 99.1 and the Letter to Stockholders  filed and attached hereto
as Exhibit 99.2.

(a)      Exhibits

         99.1  Press Release dated June 16, 1998.

         99.2  Letter to Stockholders dated June 16, 1998




                                   Signatures


         Pursuant to the  requirements  of the Securities  Exchange Act of 1934,
the  Registrant  has duly  caused  this report to be signed on its behalf by the
undersigned hereunto duly authorized.

                                    Lynx Therapeutics, Inc.
                                    --------------------------------------------
                                            (Registrant)

June 17, 1998                       /S/ Edward C. Albini
- - --------------------                --------------------------------------------
    (Date)                          Edward C. Albini
                                    Chief Financial Officer
                                    (Principal Financial and Accounting Officer)

EX-99.1

                                                                    Exhibit 99.1

                                    NEWS FROM
                             LYNX THERAPEUTICS, INC.
                    3832 BAY CENTER PLACE, HAYWARD, CA 94545

                                                   Contacts:    Sam Eletr, Ph.D.
                                                                Edward C. Albini
                                                                (510) 670-9300

                         LYNX TO USE NEW TECHNOLOGY FOR
                      POLYMORPHISM SEARCHES AND GENOTYPING


HAYWARD,  CALIFORNIA,  June 16, 1998 - Lynx  Therapeutics,  Inc. (Nasdaq:  LYNX)
announced  today, in a letter to its  shareholders,  that it is setting up a new
department whose object is to identify up to 100,000  polymorphisms (about 1 per
gene)  by  early  1999.  (Polymorphisms  are DNA  sequence  differences  between
individuals.  They  may be used to  compare  groups  of  people  with  different
diseases or disease  dispositions,  to discover  common regions of their genomes
which  could then  serve,  either as  diagnostic  indicators,  or as targets for
therapies).

The effort will be based on a proprietary,  highly parallel  process designed to
enable both the simultaneous  comparison of very large numbers of fragments from
different  genomes,  and the  retrieval  of  polymorphism-containing  fragments,
without having to do any sequencing  (other than for validation).  Such parallel
scans of whole genomes are expected to provide Lynx with a much more direct path
to  discovering   disease-associated  sequence  differences.   The  process,  in
addition,  enables  focusing  on  particular  kinds  of  polymorphisms  so  that
subsequent  assays of large numbers of patients for the  differences can readily
be made using similar parallel techniques.

The Company is also developing a highly parallel  genotyping method derived from
its proprietary  "cloning on beads" technology.  This proprietary  technology is
designed  to  enable  the  simultaneous  screening  of  very  large  numbers  of
polymorphisms  against whole  individual  genomes.  The Company is in discussion
with several potential  partners with whom to screen large population groups for
disease   association  or  disease   pre-disposition,   or  for  pharmacogenomic
investigations.

According  to Sam  Eletr,  Chairman  and CEO of  Lynx,  "this  is a  significant
development that adds a new dimension to Lynx.  While the new technologies  have
great  potential  value to a number of  companies,  beginning  to  exploit  them
immediately,  on our own, makes good sense because of their power: we could well
discover and validate nearly half our targeted set of  polymorphisms in the time
it would take us to negotiate and execute a potential partnership."

Formed in 1992,  Lynx is currently  focused on  developing  proprietary,  highly
parallel technologies for the handling and characterization of DNA molecules and
fragments.  It  expects  these  technologies  will  contribute  to a  number  of
applications  including  gene  discovery,  characterization  of  gene  function,
identification  of  disease-associated  genomic  sequences,  and  the  study  of
non-human genomes such as commercially important plants and animals.

Statements  included in this press release  which are not  historical in nature,
are  "forward-looking  statements"  within  the  meaning  of the  "safe  harbor"
provisions of the Private Securities  Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company
cautions  readers that  forward-looking  statements are subject to certain risks
and  uncertainties  that could cause actual  results to differ  materially  from
those indicated in the  forward-looking  statements due to the risks and factors
identified  from  time to time in the  Company's  reports  filed  with  the SEC,
including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1997.

EX-99.2

                                                                    Exhibit 99.2

                                                            June 16, 1998
Dear Stockholder:

As you know,  Lynx's  business  is now focused  exclusively  on  exploiting  the
Company's proprietary,  massively parallel technologies for the manipulation and
analysis of DNA.  These are not only well  protected by patents and  technically
difficult  to  emulate,  they  are  also  extremely  powerful.   They  can  deal
simultaneously   with   500,000  or  more  DNA   molecules,   cloning  them  and
automatically  collecting  the  clones  on as  many  microbeads  for  subsequent
simultaneous  assaying.  Such  massively  parallel  assays of clones for various
applications  have been,  or are being,  reduced to practice.  One, for example,
enables  sorting the beads (clones)  according to various  properties they might
share. Another enables simultaneous  comparisons between sets of clones. And yet
another  yields  sequence  information  from each clone.  All  promise  exciting
business opportunities for Lynx because they enable analyses that are either too
difficult or too onerous, if not impossible,  to address by other methods. Since
pursuing them requires a revision of our earlier  plans,  and since the evolving
genetics  and  genomics  landscape  suggests  even  more  opportunities  for our
technologies,  it seemed  appropriate to review for you all these  opportunities
together as well as their context.

The ability to sort  clones of genes that share  certain  properties  or satisfy
given criteria has recently been reduced to practice for two  applications:  the
first  seeks to extract  rarely  expressed  genes from the  haystack of abundant
ones, while the second seeks to extract genes that are differentially  expressed
between samples.  The first of these is important because rare genes, not easily
accessible by current  techniques,  account for the still  unidentified 20 to 30
percent or so of human  genes.  Their  extraction  and  subsequent  cloning  and
sequencing would essentially complete existing data bases on which much research
and many gene chips are based. The second, of course, is important in functional
genomic studies.  Other techniques will extract or identify genes differentially
expressed  between  samples  only  if  they  are  already  known  or  abundantly
expressed.  They are thus inadequate in many cases,  especially where rare human
tissues,  or tissues from animal models are concerned.  Lynx expects  shortly to
begin such extractions for the account of existing and prospective partners.

Sequence  information  obtained  in  parallel  from a large  number of clones of
expressed  genes may serve to quantify  gene  expression in a tissue or cell; it
may enable the  assembly of genomic  maps if the clones are  genomic  fragments;
and,  finally,  it may enable the  assembly of genomic  sequences.  The first of
these  helped  attract  our  current  partners,  the  second  is the  object  of
partnering discussions aimed at mapping certain non-human genomes, and the third
will be discussed separately in a later paragraph.  The past several months have
been devoted in part to constructing second generation machines able to sequence
cDNA and genomic DNA libraries. Two such instruments have been completed and are
being tested;  another  eight will be completed by the end of June.  Barring the
unexpected, we hope to begin providing preliminary sequence data to our existing
and prospective partners sometime this summer.

Genome-based  genetics is a young field where every advance increases demand for
yet  others.  Identification  of 70 to 80  percent  of human  genes has whet the
appetite for the rest,  as was mentioned  above.  Now that 3 to 5 percent of the
human  genome  have  been  sequenced,  hunger  for  the  rest  has  initiated  a
controversial  and very expensive race for the human genome between  private and
public interests that will consume hundreds of millions  dollars.  Overlooked in
the debate over this race is that its object is not an end but a beginning.  The
beginning of another race to sequence a multitude of individual  genomes such as
yours and mine,  and those of sick and  healthy  people of all  possible  races,
ethnicities and histories. For it is only by comparing such genomes that one may
hope  to  fully   elucidate   the  genetic  basis  of  disease  and  of  disease
predisposition.  But this will not be practical with current  technologies  that
exact a price tag of hundreds  of millions of dollars for just one genome.  That
is why other strategies are used for such (partial) comparisons of genomes until
new advances in technology further drive down the cost of genomic sequencing.

One such  strategy has nurtured yet another  race,  the race for  polymorphisms.
Polymorphisms are sequence differences between individuals,  sometimes involving
as little as a single base change, which may be used to compare different groups
of people  with  different  diseases  or disease  dispositions,  to see if their
genomes  share  common  regions.  These  could then serve  either as  diagnostic
indicators or as targets for therapies.  Prodded by  announcements  that private
ventures expect to discover and patent large numbers of polymorphisms within two
to three  years,  publicly  funded  organizations  have  accelerated  their  own
searches for  polymorphisms in order to place these in the public domain for use
by all.  Either way the searches won't be easy as they are quite  laborious with
existing  technologies.  They require  sequencing genomic fragments from several
individuals  until the same fragments from each can be found and compared.  Many
repeated   sequencing   experiments   are  thus   needed  to  obtain  a  set  of
polymorphisms.   With  the  human  genome  containing  over  3,000,000  sequence
polymorphisms,  it is not clear, without further experiments,  which subset will
better uncover disease association.




With Lynx's parallel technologies the task of identifying  polymorphisms is much
simpler.  Recent  developments  have shown that it is  possible  both to compare
simultaneously  large  numbers  of  fragments  from  different  genomes,  and to
retrieve those fragments containing polymorphisms, without doing any sequencing.
(Validating  polymorphisms  discovered in this way does require  sequencing  the
isolated  fragments;  but that amount of sequencing is small, only a few percent
of that required by methods based on  conventional  searches.)  This capacity to
conduct  parallel  scans of whole genomes  provides Lynx with a much more direct
path to  disease-associated  differences.  In addition,  it enables  focusing on
particular  kinds of sequence  differences  so that the  subsequent  assaying of
thousands  of patients  for the  differences  can readily be made using  similar
parallel techniques.

Lynx  has  therefore  launched,  on  June  1,  a new  program  for  polymorphism
identification.  A new  department  is being formed to house this work and a new
Vice  President  will soon join the  Company to  organize  and manage the search
program and subsequent sequence  validations.  This program will not just search
for  random  polymorphisms.  It  will  include  from  the  start  a  search  for
disease-associated  ones.  The Company  believes that its parallel  technologies
will allow it to  discover  by early 1999 up to 100,000  sequence  polymorphisms
(about 1 per gene) with less than a dozen technicians.

The ability to screen  large  polymorphism  sets against  individual  genomes in
population groups is an increasingly important application. To this end, Lynx is
also  developing  a highly  parallel  genotyping  method  derived  both from the
Company's  proprietary  "cloning on beads" technology and the parallel screening
technology described above. It is expected to enable the simultaneous  screening
of a polymorphism set against a whole  individual  genome and,  therefore,  very
high throughput  genotyping of population  groups.  The Company is in discussion
with  several  potential  partners  with  whom  fully to  exploit  these  latest
applications of its technologies. Applications being discussed include screening
large   population   groups  in  search  of  disease   association   or  disease
pre-disposition, as well as pharmacogenomic investigations.

Later,  when the  availability  of the first generic human genome begins to fuel
the appetite for large  comparative  studies of genomes,  its very  availability
will also enable Lynx's  massively  parallel  sequencing to feed that  appetite.
That technology  obtains sequences,  simultaneously,  from very large numbers of
genome  fragments.  Availability of a generic human genome will greatly simplify
the task of splicing together such fragmented  sequences obtained from any other
human genome.  It will also reduce the need for multiple  fragmentations.  Thus,
Lynx  expects  the  genome's  availability  will  open  up for  it  the  genomic
re-sequencing  market.  The Company is already  planning for that market.  A new
system capable of  re-sequencing  any variant genome in a few weeks (rather than
the few hundred  instrument-weeks  of the conventional  technology) is now under
development.  It should be ready within the two to three years projected for the
availability  of the  genome.  If we are  successful,  Lynx  could be one of the
first,  if not the first, to benefit from this new field that will be built upon
the availability of the human genome.

The past months have been occupied by efforts to demonstrate  the  feasibilities
of the  technologies  mentioned above, and by efforts to understand their values
and potentials so as to better approach the  appropriate  markets or prospective
opportunities.  This  reassessment  has  given  us  the  confidence  to be  more
aggressive  in  defining  and  choosing  partnerships.  We are,  in  particular,
extremely excited by the potential value of our new polymorphism  identification
technology as we believe it could give us a clear edge over many others with far
greater  resources.  It is my hope that a similar  communication  to you,  a few
months from now, will validate this claim with concrete results.

                                      Sincerely,


                                      /s/  Sam Eletr

                                      Sam Eletr, Ph.D.
                                      Chairman and CEO


Statements  included in this press release  which are not  historical in nature,
are  "forward-looking  statements"  within  the  meaning  of the  "safe  harbor"
provisions of the Private Securities  Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company
cautions  readers that  forward-looking  statements are subject to certain risks
and  uncertainties  that could cause actual  results to differ  materially  from
those indicated in the forward-looking  statements, due to the risks and factors
identified  from  time to time in the  Company's  reports  filed  with  the SEC,
including its Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 1997.