The early biotech industry thrived on a combination of hope and hype while diagnostics, which evolved using many of the same tools, was traditionally viewed -- and priced -- almost as a commodity. Now we're seeing the advent of complex, high-value diagnostics. As the techniques underlying tests increase in their biological complexity and the knowledge base of their developers about specific disease areas deepens, is the value proposition becoming more biotech-like?

The early biotech industry thrived on a combination of hope and hype while diagnostics, which evolved using many of the same tools, was traditionally viewed -- and priced -- almost as a commodity. Now we're seeing the advent of complex, high-value diagnostics. As the techniques underlying tests increase in their biological complexity and the knowledge base of their developers about specific disease areas deepens, is the value proposition becoming more biotech-like?

Among diagnostic specialties, anatomic pathology is the last holdout against the digital revolution. Pathologists still detect disease by looking at tissue samples on a glass slide through a microscope, just as they have done for a hundred years. But in the last couple of years, start-up companies have begun to break the bondage of pathologists to slides. Their solution: platforms for digitizing slides so they can be accessed through computer networks by clinicians anywhere in the world. Two start-ups, Aperio and BioImagene, have led the way and now all the big imaging manufacturers, the microscope companies and biomarker developers want in.