Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Danish biotech is on the rise: in 2006, companies raised unprecedented amounts of venture capital, pried open the window for initial public offerings and tempted investorswith follow-up offerings.
Although Bayer Healthcare, headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany, spent most of 2006 in the spotlight because of its €16.3 billion ($19.6 billion) acquisition of Berlin-based Schering, its ongoing restructuring is bound to yield a total of three new German spin-offs to the ranks of Europe's independent life sciences companies.
Foster City, California–based Gilead surprised Wall Street with a proposal to purchase Westminster, Colorado–based Myogen on 2 October 2006 in a tender offer of $2.5 billion in cash. The acquisition could demonstrate that companies with niche applications are becoming more attractive to better-established biopharmaceutical companies.
Where combinatorial chemistry and genomics have stalled, could an exploration of untapped sources usher in a second golden age of antibiotic discovery? Cormac Sheridan investigates.
Despite growing commercial interest in antimicrobial strategies that rely on antibodies, recent clinical trial failures suggest they are a work in progress.
Is uncertainty concerning the regulation of antimicrobial drug trials stifling investment in infectious disease treatments? Here, experts from a large pharma company and a biotech firm provide their perspectives.