Awash in $$$

We're impressed. As of this week, biotech has raised $3.7 billion - as much capital in the first four-and-a-half months of the year as the sector raised during all of 1995. It's raised far more than the $2.2 billion for all of 1994, the $2.4 billion for 1993 and the $2.5 billion in 1992. And it is fast approaching the $3.9 billion raised in the banner year of 1991.

Most amazing, for curmudgeons like us, is that we don't see much standing in the industry's way right now. The next big inflection points are two panel meetings to be held in June: on Cephalon's Myotrophin IGF-1 for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and for Guilford's Gliadel implant to treat malignant glioma. ...