When Millennium Pharmaceuticals Inc. nailed down its overseas marketing deal in July 2003 with Ortho Biotech Products LP for the multiple myeloma drug Velcade (approved two months earlier), investors sat up and took notice. (BioWorld Financial Watch)

Industry leaders like to use phrases such as "going forward" and "as the company evolves," even though a troubling number of firms in biotechnology (and other industries) tend instead to stall, slide or die.