It was a good year for...

Vaccines. Long neglected by big pharmaceutical companies for cost and risk reasons, fears of bioterrorism and a flu pandemic, not to mention weak R&D pipelines and looming patent expiries on blockbusters, are forcing companies to rethink their philosophy on vaccines. GlaxoSmithKline expanded its development capabilities and said it intends to launch five major vaccines over the next five years. Novartis bought the remaining shares in Chiron, taking the company firmly into the vaccines business. Cervical cancer vaccines could soon be on the market (see 'Six to watch in 2006'), and positive Phase II results on a vaccine being developed by GSK and the Malaria Vaccine Initiative called RTS,S showed that protection against malaria could be possible.

Scientific persistence. For years, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren faced ridicule and hostility from the academic and industrial scientific communities for claiming that ulcers could be caused by a bacterial infection. After years of dogged pursuit, even to the point of swallowing a culture of Helicobacter pylori to show that it could infect the stomach lining, the researchers proved their case, changed medical thinking radically, and were awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology this year for their endeavours. Achieving science's highest accolade shows how the attitude of the scientific community can switch from ridicule to reward if a idea that bucks current wisdom can be backed up by hard evidence.

Public–private partnerships. Only 13 new drugs were developed for neglected diseases between 1975 and 1999. But by the end of 2004, there were 63 neglected-disease drug projects in progress, three-quarters of which are being carried out under the auspices of PPPs, according to a study published by a group at the London School of Economics, UK. The boost in the number of drugs in development is occurring despite the absence of new government incentives for industry, shattering the illusion that large companies need commercial incentives to commit to neglected diseases. Although this experiment is succeeding, thanks largely to funds from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, it needs to be taken to the next level and made sustainable.