In November, the UK's biggest biotechnology company CelltechChiroscience (Slough, UK) announced it will merge with pharmaceutical group Medeva (Leatherhead, UK) in a deal worth £563 million ($900 million). The resulting integrated lifescience company, Celltech Group, has a current market value of $2.1 billion, 56% being held by CelltechChiroscience shareholders, 44% by Medeva's. Through the acquisition, Celltech boosts its product pipeline with three phase III compounds (for hepatitis B, scleroderma, and attention deficit disorder) and one phase I drug (for cystic fibrosis). More importantly, Celltech will have access to a European sales and marketing network, through which it might be able to launch its own unpartnered products, CDP-571 for Crohn's disease and CDP-870 for rheumatoid arthritis, both currently in phase II. Celltech chair John Jackson and Medeva chair John Baker will become Celltech Group chair and deputy chair, respectively. CelltechChiroscience itself was only formed last summer (Nature Biotechnol, 17, 741).