The proposed introduction of a regulatory pathway for follow-on protein products in the United States continues to attract considerable attention. In their Perspective, Lanthier and colleagues analyse the potential economic impact of such legislation, projecting that protein products representing a large proportion of current sales of this therapy class will lose patent protection in the next decade. Over the past decade, appreciation of the utility of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) technology in drug discovery has grown significantly, and in the second perspective this month, Pellecchia and colleagues evaluate applications of NMR, focusing on hit and lead generation. They emphasize that early integration of a variety of scientific disciplines is essential for successful implementation of this technology in drug discovery. The application of nanoscale technologies in medicine has also expanded in recent years, with nanoparticle-based therapeutics increasingly emerging as a novel anticancer strategy. In their Review, Davis and colleagues discuss the benefits and limitations of nanoparticles compared with existing cancer therapies, focusing on studies that are most likely to affect clinical investigations. Cancer is among the diseases in which transmembrane tetraspanin proteins appear to be involved. Hemler discusses the potential of this relatively under-investigated class of proteins to be therapeutically targeted, reviewing the roles of individual tetraspanin family members in cancer, fertilization, infectious-disease processes and immune function. Immune cells express the G-protein-coupled adenosine receptors, through which adenosine acts as an endogenous modulator of inflammatory and immune processes during tissue injury. In our final Review, Haskó and colleagues discuss these properties and the potential of modulating the activity of specific adenosine receptor subtypes to treat various inflammatory diseases.