Choosing life sciences

OXFORD - Hoechst AG's announcement last week that it will shed its chemistry businesses and focus on biology is just the latest event in a phenomenon that finds chemical industry CEOs retraining their sights on the biosciences and jettisoning their cyclical commodity chemicals businesses in search of greater shareholder value.

This rationalization of portfolios is creating a new superclass of life sciences companies from an industry that has been dominated for a century by large diversified companies...