Statistical review compiled from our Strategic Transactions database including financings by type (IPO, private placement etc.); financings by sector (surgical equipment, implantable devices, etc.); alliances by therapeutic category (cardiovascular, orthopedic, etc.); alliances by industry segment (biomaterials, monitoring equipment, etc. ); for three separate industries: medical devices, in vitro diagnostics, and pharmaceuticals/biotechnology.

Cypress Bioscience has reinvented itself in the past year to focus on the development of drugs for fibromyalgia syndrome, a mysterious disease characterized by pain and sleeplessness in the absence of measurable pathophysiological features.

A preview of the emerging health care companies profiled in the current issue of Start-Up. This month's profile groups focus on Biorepositories (Asterand Inc., BioSample Inc., Genomics Collaborative Inc., TissueInformatics Inc.); Therapeutics for Diabetes and Obesity (Arexis AB, Diabetogen Biosciences Inc., PanCel Corp., Rademacher Group Ltd.); and Orthopedic and Surgical Devices (Ascension Orthopedics Inc., Coapt Systems Inc., NuVasive Inc., SpringFlex Orthopedics Inc.). Plus these Selected Start-Ups across Health Care: Achillion Pharmaceuticals Inc., GeneProt Inc., MonitorForHire.com and Targacept Inc.

Despite the in silico research ideals of many genomicists, no one has yet found a way around the basic requirement for using human tissue in gene expression studies-a broad array of it, well characterized, from healthy and diseased patients, and from world populations at large. That's why start-ups, drug discovery firms and others are creating a new resource: biorepositories--banks of tissue samples and data to serve the diagnostic, pharmaceutical and tissue engineering industries. As providers of services and products to research-based companies, these companies believe they are operating in a market that ranges from $500 million to $5 billion.