Features in 2007

Small molecules have dominated antivirals for decades, but other approaches are needed and biologics could show the way.

A survey of Nature Biotechnology's authors reveals many paths to commercial success.

A survey of market trends for biotech products shows that only a handful out of more than one hundred biologics have been fueling the double-digit rise in revenues in the sector.

An unprecedented study claiming that transgenic soybeans compromise the fertility of rats and the survival and growth of their offspring has garnered widespread media and political attention but remains unpublished in the peer-reviewed literature. Here, an account of the work from the principal investigator, Irina Ermakova, is appended with comments from researchers in the field.

As the cost of drug development continues to rise and public markets shift their attention to companies with late-stage products, an increasing diversity of financing options are becoming available to biotech companies with early-stage clinical programs.

Although biotech revenue and R&D spending continued to expand rapidly last year, profitability became a little more elusive.

Drugs targeting microRNAs lie some way off, but diagnostics look promising and commercial interest is growing.

In the early 1990s, functional foods promised to solve global malnutrition and put palatable options for treating ailments on grocery shelves. Since then, a meager number of products have ripened while the rest have turned sour.

India's home-grown biotech companies must strike a balance between domestic and international markets.

Designing clinical trials that adapt midstream is billed as a cure for drug development blues, one that can save time, money and improve patients' lives. Are these new designs safe and effective or an expensive gimmick?

Five years after the US anthrax attacks, and more than two years after BioShield legislation was ratified, a survey reveals that biodefense funding has thus far produced only a handful of products for clinical development.