The dealmaking column is a survey of recent transactions, including strategic alliances, mergers & acquisitions, and financings, in the life sciences industries. Deals are listed by the following industry sectors: in vitro diagnostics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and research/analytical instrumentation and reagents. All transactions are excerpted from Windhover's Strategic Transactions database, providing comprehensive transaction coverage from 1991 to the present.

There's growing conviction that gene arrays are less useful than first imagined for expression studies and diagnostics--and that directly reading protein expression will more likely provide an accurate picture of biological status-health, disease, and pharmaceutical response. Thus, a number of companies have started up to create, on the analogy of gene arrays, protein arrays, to allow the simultaneous and quantitative testing of large numbers of proteins-potentially thousands.But the task is easier said than done. First, there are too few proteins known to allow testing for worthwhile expression patterns; and, second, because of the delicacy and variety of proteins, surface chemistry and other problems have historically made arrays impractical. None of this daunts the start-ups who, opportunistic, are looking to exploit the markets they think they can get to first: clinical diagnostics and pharmaceutical clinical development programs.