The new, promising class of drugs is rolling toward the clinic, but a respected research group recently thrust a stick in the spokes and prompted a call for wider access to the technology.

The new, promising class of drugs is rolling toward the clinic, but a respected research group recently thrust a stick in the spokes and prompted a call for wider access to the technology.

The Dealmaking column is a survey of recent transactions, including strategic alliances, mergers & acquisitions, and financings, in the life sciences industries. Deals are listed by the following industry sectors: in vitro diagnostics, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and research/analytical instrumentation and reagents. All transactions are excerpted from Elsevier's Strategic Transactions database, providing comprehensive transaction coverage from 1991 to the present.

An agile and energetic cohort of biotech platform companies plans to capture Big Pharma's imagination--and its pocketbook--by going after intractable drug targets that have long eluded the industry, and they're doing it on a shoestring budget.