Pharma is keenly interested in new cancer diagnostics tools, which in many cases are aimed at selecting the best therapy for a specific patient, measuring response to therapy and predicting or more sensitively measuring relapse. These technologies are often the same as those used in pharma's drug development efforts. But deciding with whom and how to ally for the development and distribution of tests is difficult, showing just how uncharted, and bumpy, is the current diagnostics terrain.

A roundup of recent medtech strategic alliances, mergers & acquisitions and financings.

One of the great mysteries that has long bewildered cardiologists is why as many people with normal cholesterol levels suffer from heart disease and sudden cardiac death as do those with elevated cholesterol. Building on technology developed at the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley HeartLab has developed a battery of proprietary diagnostic tests that reveal cholesterol abnormalities that go beyond conventional HDL and LDL analysis. Berkeley HeartLab was founded as a cardiovascular reference lab that had a unique diagnostic approach but floundered largely because of the company's inability to convince cardiologists of the benefits of this new method over traditional cholesterol tests. A classic example of a re-start, new management appears to have unearthed the value in the company's proprietary testing program by recognizing the advantage in marketing Berkeley HeartLab's product as a cardiovascular diagnostic planning and disease management tool powered by web-enabled e-health technology.

The boom times are over in devices. Now venture capitalists vow to focus more on business fundamentals. Entrepreneurs say the same, while they increasingly seek start-up money from private investors known as angels.