The success of Abbott Laboratories' acquisition of Spinal Concepts may depend as much on company restraint as on company resources.

Quorex Pharmaceuticals has discovered a regulatory molecule and signaling pathway that permits bacterial cells to sense when they have achieved the population density (a quorum) needed to initiate the successful infection of a host. It is developing compounds that disrupt that communication system, which is found in a range of pathogens, to prevent infection.

Ten years ago, researchers observed that injecting vascular endothelial growth factors or fibroblast frowth factors into animal models of ischemia stimulated the formation of new blood vessels. The discovery that, with a bit of prompting, the body's natural capacity for angiogenesis could be accelerated, has drawn more than a dozen drug firms and a handful of cardiovascular device companies into the search for a biological alternative that can aid or replace current cardiovascular interventions, or even delay the progression of heart disease.

Gene Therapy companies need delivery devices for their therapies and device companies must increasingly embrace biotechnologies to improve and differentiate their increasingly commoditized offerings. In a handful of device/biotech deals signed in the pas year, device companies are gaining exclusive worldwide rights to new cardiovascular gene therapies. The next meeting ground for gene therapies and devices: orthobiologics.