Shire's proposed $1.6 billion cash takeover of TKT answers investors' call for some deal-making action and pipeline diversification. But critics say Shire has paid over the odds for some risky programs in unfamiliar territory--rather like it did with BioChem.

The University of Wisconsin - Madison spin-off is modifying the vitamin D molecule to enhance its bone building activity for the treatment of osteoporosis.

Nabi with PhosLo and Genzyme with Renagel now split the market for dialysis patients requiring treatment for high phosphate levels. Soon a third firm will enter the fray--the UK's Shire. Thus far, the marketing battle has been fought with nitty-gritty clinical data. But now Genzyme is raising the notion of "accumulation" to stigmatize competitors, while Nabi emphasizes the issue of cost. The competitive stakes are rising because Medicare changes in 2006 will dramatically expand the market.

Founded in 1925 to administer the vitamin D patent portfolio of University of Wisconsin, Madison professor Harry Steenbock, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation was considered a model for the Bayh-Dole Act, which gave institutions title and rights to their federally funded inventions, and also the responsibility to actively commercialize them, consistent with the public interest. WARF's licensing activities have included the development of blood anti-coagulants, leading to Coumadin, another generation of patents on pharmaceutical use of vitamin D analogs, and the medical imaging technology digital subtraction angiography. Since the passage of Bayh-Dole, WARF has added to its licensing portfolio, among other inventions, MRI imaging techniques, the so-called "UW Solution" for preserving organs for transplantation, and core patents on the use of primate and human embryonic stem cells.