Psyche Pharmaceuticals aims to commercialize a technique for the chemical synthesis of proteins, which theoretically allows for the insertion of unnatural amino acids and thus, custom design of therapeutic proteins. The new method combines aspects of solution-based and solid-phase approaches to peptide synthesis, and also harnesses mass spectroscopy. For now, the start-up aims to sell peptides, particularly chemokines, into the research market.

Founders of Structural GenomiX hope to shorten the X-ray crystallography process to such an extent that it can become, in effect, "the Celera Genomics of protein structures."

Deal-making between universities and medical device companies has historically been limited. Not only are such deals often too pricey for device companies, the nature of medical device innovation--more likely to be incremental improvements than quantum leaps forward--gives physicians and entrepreneurs an edge over universities. But that may be changing, as this look at university/medical device deals in the first half of 1997 shows.