Earlier this month when Biogen Idec Inc. at last unveiled one-year data from its Phase III trial known as AFFIRM, hopes of investors - not to mention multiple sclerosis patients - ran high for the would-be blockbuster Antegren (natalizumab).

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)

Three academic scientists jointly won the 2004 Nobel Prize for research into ubiquitin ligases, and Rigel Pharmaceuticals Inc. is taking home an "award" of its own - a deal with Merck & Co. Inc. to investigate the new class of drugs for cancer therapies and others. (BioWorld Today)

Amgen Inc. launched a $100 million venture capital fund for start-up biotechnology firms that will let the West Coast giant get a piece of the early stage action as far away as Boston. (BioWorld Today)

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.