News & Comment

Although some dazzling technical approaches have fallen short, dozens of small companies and a few major pharmas seek new products for this medically crucial, modest-growth market.

An analysis of 105 mergers among small UK biotech companies over a 10-year period shows that the improvement of shareholder positions, rather than product pipelines or business opportunities, is the main motivation for such transactions.

A global survey of companies pursuing 'nanomedicine' indicates that nanotechnology is taking root in the drug and medical device industry.

Despite the boom in genetic tests available in US laboratories, oversight remains patchy. A survey of laboratory directors suggests that mandatory proficiency testing would result in fewer errors.

A new breed of high-cost diagnostics are entering a commercial and regulatory environment that isn't designed for them. Can they prosper?

Today, ethanol and biodiesel are predominantly produced from corn kernels, sugarcane or soybean oil. But researchers and investors are increasingly upbeat about another biofuel feedstock, lignocellulose—the most abundant biological material on earth.

The rate of biopharmaceutical approvals has leveled off, but some milestones bode well for the future.

Compared with the plethora of financial information about the publicly traded elite of the biotech world, little is known about the multitude of private biotech firms. Here, Nature Biotechnology's Editor-at-Large provides an analysis of the financial performance of the privately held biotech sector.

Analyzing patent data from 1995–2005 show the increasing importance of patenting by small and medium-sized biotech companies.

Although investors remained cautious of public biotech companies in 2005, acquisitions and research partnerships were on the up.

An analysis of life-science initial public offerings from three time periods reveals that the equity share received by universities and their academic researchers has changed over time.

Genetics is slowly explaining variations in drug response, but applying this knowledge depends on implementation of a host of policies that provide long-term support to the field, from translational research and regulation to professional education.

Biotech is no longer the exclusive domain of Western economies. A group of experts from around the world discuss emerging trends and opportunities for biotech in territories outside the United States and Europe.

Nature Biotechnology's readers select some of biotech's most remarkable and influential personalities from the past 10 years.

Authors of some of the most highly cited Nature Biotechnology papers from the past 10 years discuss their work and the remaining challenges for their fields.