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.
Next year, San Diego-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals is hoping to launch a third-generation selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) that it developed with Wyeth of Collegeville, Pennsylvania.
A raft of companies offering stretches of synthetic DNA built to customer specifications at low-cost have been attracting biotechs attention with promises of ever-longer stands.
Two companies, Kosan Biosciences, and NeuTec Pharma, are vying for “first in field” status with drugs that take different approaches to squelching heat shock protein 90.
The discovery of traces of unapproved genetically modified rice in United States exports has once again put the spotlight on biotech companies' failure to fully contain field trials and on governments' inability to keep the food supply free of unapproved traits.
With a healthy dose of skepticism and a penchant for science policy, Michael Fernandez wades into the contentious issue of agricultural biotech regulation. He talks about how to move a polarized debate forward and the constant challenge of remaining neutral in Washington, DC.