1953 was an extraordinary year for biology, an annus mirabilis, or wonder year, which offered scientific insights to rival those made by Einstein almost half a century earlier.

Specializing in controlled breathing technologies for inhaled drug delivery Activaero GMBH is developing a suite of technologies that can efficiently deliver personalized dosing to different targets in the lungs. Activaero is seeking partners with dose-critical or expensive drugs that will benefit from the technology's dose-sparing benefits, or drugs that previously couldn't be delivered using the pulmonary route

The successful commercialization of drug-eluting stents (DES) has done much to pave the way for the biocoating industy. DES not only helped establish a new regulatory body to facilitate device-drug reviews, the FDA Office of Combination Products, they also proved that biocoated devices could take market share from uncoated products, command premium pricing and premium reimbursement.

Avontec GMBH is a German start up company focused on developing drugs for inflammatory diseases by interfering with transcription factors. Founded in August 2001, the firm has two drugs entering Phase I trials based on its decoy oligonucleotide technology and an agreement with Biotronik GMBH to develop next-generation drug-eluting stents.