Despite the in silico research ideals of many genomicists, no one has yet found a way around the basic requirement for using human tissue in gene expression studies-a broad array of it, well characterized, from healthy and diseased patients, and from world populations at large. That's why start-ups, drug discovery firms and others are creating a new resource: biorepositories--banks of tissue samples and data to serve the diagnostic, pharmaceutical and tissue engineering industries. As providers of services and products to research-based companies, these companies believe they are operating in a market that ranges from $500 million to $5 billion.

In the course of validating disease targets or developing drugs, researchers need tissue samples from patients with specific types of diseases as well as from healthy patients.BioSample Inc., has an internet-enabled biological material procurement solution to the pharmaceutical/biotech community.

From the politics of prescription drug coverage to the crash of the e-health sector, from biotech's market boom to the lackluster device IPO market, a look back at the most significant events of 2000.

While Ventro Corp. announces the closing of two of its B2B e-commerce businesses, its Broadlane business announces a major group purchasing agreement with Kaiser Permanente.