With EpiPen injector patent-protected and patients accustomed to its use, finding a substitutable generic device may prove difficult.

There are many treatments on the market and in development that ease the symptoms of allergies, from antihistamines to immunotherapies, but there is no real prevention or cure. Swedish biotech Swecure AB aims to prevent the development of allergies in the first place: its research is based on a bacterial protein, known as a superantigen, found in the gut flora of newborn babies.

Hospitals and health care organizations must make purchasing decisions about specific drugs for specific indications, when to prescribe them, and how to seek reimbursement. AdverseEvents Inc. wants to inform their decision-making by providing adverse effect profiles of individual drugs and predicting the downstream costs of follow-on health care to manage those side effects.