Summarizing the month in European dealmaking.

As a former head of discovery research at Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc. (now Aventis SA), Jean-Bernard Le Pecq, PhD was accustomed to learning of new discoveries on a regular basis. But in 1997, one particular breakthrough in cell-to-cell communications caught his attention. Researchers found that small vesicles, known as exosomes, allow for the transfer of proteins to other cells. Le Pecq believed that exosomes could be used as a mechanism to develop innovative therapeutic vaccines and this idea ultimately propelled him to co-found Anosys Inc. in 1997.

Often started by the academic inventors or their laboratory acolytes, biotechs offer equity participations (to universities and researchers) as well as focused attention to their inventions. As large companies have steadily invested in and improved their own discovery operations, in particular going further into the basic research which is the stuff of academic labs, they find themselves positioned to exploit university research in a more focused way-and thus are more willing than ever to do universi