Niadyne Inc.'s scientific founders have devoted their academic careers to the biological causes of skin cell injury and methods for its repair. The company has developed nutrient-based compounds to combat the DNA damage that leads to deterioration in skin's appearance, as well as a topical system to deliver them. Niadyne's initial products will be marketed as cosmeceuticals, but it aims to pursue longer-term therapeutic interests in wound healing and heart disease.

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.

Savvy venture capitalists, biotech firms, and pharmaceutical companies have long recognized universities as technology troves of untapped value. In the last year or so, universities have developed a heightened perception of their own value--and are increasingly willing to exploit it through creative dealmaking. A look at the previous six months of licenses and research agreements signed between universities and pharmaceutical companies.