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Volume 24 Issue 12, December 2006

Polarized light micrograph (400x) of penicillin crystals, the first commercially available antibacterial, grown in an aqueous solution. To date, the penicillins, initially derived from molds, still represent the gold standard by which other antibiotics are measured. This issue reviews the current state of the science and business of antibacterials. (Jung/Photo Researchers, Inc.)

Volume 24 Issue 12

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Editorial

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News

  • Next year, San Diego-based Ligand Pharmaceuticals is hoping to launch a third-generation selective estrogen receptor modulator (SERM) that it developed with Wyeth of Collegeville, Pennsylvania.

    • Mark Hollmer
    News

  • Foster City, California–based Gilead surprised Wall Street with a proposal to purchase Westminster, Colorado–based Myogen on 2 October 2006 in a tender offer of $2.5 billion in cash. The acquisition could demonstrate that companies with niche applications are becoming more attractive to better-established biopharmaceutical companies.

    • John Ransom
    News

  • Although Bayer Healthcare, headquartered in Leverkusen, Germany, spent most of 2006 in the spotlight because of its €16.3 billion ($19.6 billion) acquisition of Berlin-based Schering, its ongoing restructuring is bound to yield a total of three new German spin-offs to the ranks of Europe's independent life sciences companies.

    • Cormac Sheridan
    News

  • Danish biotech is on the rise: in 2006, companies raised unprecedented amounts of venture capital, pried open the window for initial public offerings and tempted investorswith follow-up offerings.

    • Nuala Moran
    News
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News in Brief

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News

  • Playing a contrarian card, Zohar's firm, PureTech Ventures, sees opportunity in forming companies around early-stage assets.

    • Mark Ratner
    News
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Data Page

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Correspondence

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Investors Lab

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Book Review

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News & Views

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Editorial

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News Feature

  • Where combinatorial chemistry and genomics have stalled, could an exploration of untapped sources usher in a second golden age of antibiotic discovery? Cormac Sheridan investigates.

    • Cormac Sheridan
    News Feature
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Commentary

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Feature

  • Although some dazzling technical approaches have fallen short, dozens of small companies and a few major pharmas seek new products for this medically crucial, modest-growth market.

    • Jeffrey L Fox
    Feature
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Patents

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Review Article

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Primer

  • Support vector machines (SVMs) are becoming popular in a wide variety of biological applications. But, what exactly are SVMs and how do they work? And what are their most promising applications in the life sciences?

    • William S Noble

    Collection:

    Primer
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Brief Communication

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Article

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Letter

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Careers and Recruitment

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People

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Focus

  • A collection of articles from Nature Biotechnology, brought together in a joint focus with Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, on the science and business of antibacterial discovery and development.

    Focus
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